[MON SENSE IN RELIGION 
G. A. McLaughlin, 




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G0EXRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Common Sense in Religion 

OR 

Reasons Why We Should 
Be Holy 

Br 

Rev. G. A. McLaughin, D. D. 

Author of 

Commentaries on the Four Gospels and Acts ; In- 
bred Sin ; A Clean Heart ; A Living- Sacrifice ; Saved 
and Kept ; Old Wine in New Bottles ; The Promised 
Gift ; The Vine and the Branches ; etc. 



THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO., 
1410 North LaSalle St., Chicago, 111. 






Copyrighted 1920 by 

THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO., 

Chicago, Illinois. 



DEC 30 m 



©CLA605190 



PREFACE 

A RELIGION not in harmony with common sense 
can not be from God. God is the author both 
of common sense and of true religion and his works 
never conflict. Hence the religion that can not 
stand the test of common sense is good for nothing 
either in this world or in the world to come. 

It is currently objected to the doctrine of holiness, 
as an experience of this life, that It is fanaticism. 
We propose to show that far from being fanaticism 
it is the purest common sense, and that the objector 
is the fanatic. 

In fact the real fanaticism is contained in that re- 
ligion that does not save us from all sin. It is the 
most absurd thing in the world, to be religious when 
our religion does not save us from that which ails 
us — sin. 

/ It is often the case that Satan throws the blame of 
his own crowd upon the Lord's people. And this is 
the case in the matter of holiness. He would take 
the eyes of men off the unreasonableness of a sinning 
religion and make a holy religion appear unreason- 
able. A sinning religion or a religion that would 
permit sin is of the devil, because he is the author 
and inspirer of all sin 



A holy religion is of God because God is holy and 
can never tolerate or encourage sin and especially 
not among his own people. 

It is therefore time that we "carried the war into 
Africa " and that we charge home on the devil and 
his folks fanaticism and unreasonableness. "We have 
allowed the charge of fanaticism to be made against 
God's holy religion long enough. 

Reader, which do you choose, a religion tLat per- 
mits sin, which is the work of Satan or the divine 
religion that saves from sin? Down in your heart 
you know which religion you prefer and your pref- 
erence shows what manner of man you are. This be ok 
is written to show the reasonableness of the experi- 
ence of holiness in this life and to show at the same 
time, the unreasonableness of the opposite— not be- 
ing saved from sin in this life. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I. 
COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION. 
Chapter II. 
HOLINESS GLORIFIES GOD. 
Chapter III. 
HOLINESS AUGMENTS OUR INFLUENCE FOR 
GOOD. 
Chapter IV. 
HOLINESS EQUIPS FOR SERVICE 
Chapter V. 
HOLINESS IS THE GREAT SAFEGUARD 
AGAINST BACKSLIDING. 
Chapter VI. 
HOLINESS IS THE CONDITION OF SATISFAC- 
TORY GROWTH. 
Chapter VII. 
HOLINESS BRINGS PROSPERITY TO THE 
CHURCH. 
Chapter VIH. 
HOLINESS BRINGS HAPPINESS. 
Chapter IX. 
HOLINESS GLORIFIES THE TRIUNE-GOD. 
Chapter X. 
HOLINESS MAKES OBEDIENCE TO DIVINE 
LAW POSSIBLE. 
Chapter XI. 
HOLINESS FITS FOR HEAVEN. 



CHAPTER I. 

COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

WE PROPOSE in showing that it is in harmony 
with good common sense that supernatural 
religion should save us from all sin, to take the neg- 
ative side, and show the folly and absurdity of a 
religion that does not save from all sin. In other 
words, a religion that does not save from all sin is a 
sinning religion. And for people to call themselves 
Christians and yet declare that they ean not, and are 
not, saved from all sin is grotesque and ridiculous. 
See what follows if the religion of Jesus does not 
save from all sin. 

A religion that permits sin is ridiculous ; because 
it represents God as pleased with sin. The system 
of religion revealed in the Bible has God as its au- 
thor. God is pleased with his religion and if he has 
given a religion that permits sin, then God is pleased 
with a system that permits sin. If he is pleased with 
such a system, then he is pleased with sin. There 
can be no escape from this conclusion. If God is 
pleased with sin, then he is not holy. Consequently 
those who deny that we can be saved from sin, really 
attack the holiness of God. There is no escape from 
this conclusion. A sinning religion is therefore a 
contradiction of a holy God. For whatever God 



2 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

does is good and his plan of salvation is therefore 
good. But to call it good when it permits evil is a 
contradiction. 

A religion that permits sin encourages sin. It en- 
courages men to remain sinful. For why should man 
seek for purity if he can get along without it ? "Why 
should he seek to be free from sin when the highest 
standard of his religion allows it? Why should he 
seek to be free from sin when his religion permits 
it ? "Why should he cut off the right hand and pluck 
out the right eye of his darling lusts if there is no 
need of it? Why should he try to be free from sin 
if his religion does not promise divine help in achiev- 
ing freedom from sin? Men do not earnestly seek 
what they think is an impossibility. When George 
Pox was preaching the glorious gospel in England in 
one place, a man remonstrated saying, "You put it 
too strong." George Fox replied, "The Scripture 
says, " 'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth 
from all sin.' " The man replied, "To be sure, but all 
we can do is to keep striving.' ' Fox replied, "What 
is the use to keep striving if we can not do it?" It 
cuts the nerve of all effort if a man believes he can 
not accomplish the thing he is seeking to do. They, 
who deny that we can be saved from all sin, really 
make the author of Christianity -an encourager of 
sin. 

A religion that permits sin makes the author of 
that religion a partner in the sins of his followers. 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 3 

This is severe logic but there is no escape from this 
conclusion. He who encourages others in any enter- 
prise becomes a partner in it, as far as his influence, 
at least, is concerned. "Whatever we encourage oth- 
ers to do is our own enterprise as far as our influence 
is concerned. A father, who does not discourage the 
disposition to dishonesty in his children, becomes re- 
sponsible for their dishonesty. He is responsible 
because he did not encourage them to be honest. The 
professed Christians, who declare that they can not 
be saved from all sin are really publishing to the 
world that God has made no provision to save from 
sin. And if he has made no provision, in his plan of 
salvation, to save from sin, then he does not discour- 
age sin. And if he does not discourage it, his silence 
on the subject is an encouragement of it. 

A religion that does not save from sin breaks down 
at the point where it is most needed. If man does 
not need to be saved from sin, what does he need to 
be saved from? Sin is the worst thing in the world. 
It is the great source of all our trouble. It is the 
cause of all the woes of mankind. It is our great 
hindrance in serving God. It is the only thing that 
can shut us out of heaven. If we need religion at 
all, we need it at this point, for if we are saved from 
sin we are saved from hell, for hell is but the result 
of sin. Therefore a religion that will not save us 
from sin is not needed for it breaks down at the 
vital point. A doctor that can not cure disease fails 



4 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

at the very point where a doctor is needed. And so 
does a sinning religion. 

On the other hand it is reasonable and probable 
that God would give us a plan of salvation that saves 
from sin. We have been showing the absurdity of a 
sinning religion. We now wish to show the reason- 
ableness of a religion that saves from sin, or at least 
we wish to show that the Christian religion reason- 
ably must save us from sin in this present life. It is 
reasonable to expect that God would give a religion 
that will save from all sin because no other religion 
can glorify God. He is holy and his plan of salvation 
glorifies him in making his people like him. It is the 
glory of an honest man to have honest children. It 
is the glory of a holy God to have holy children. 
Does this seem unreasonable ? It is not unreasonable 
for a man to have children like him. No one objects 
to a child being like his parents. If we are the chil- 
dren of God it would be most unreasonable if we 
were not like Him. 

Holiness glorifies God, for he is the author of holi- 
ness and sin glorifies Satan, because he is the author 
of sin. Everybody in the world is glorifying either 
God or Satan. 

A religion that saves from sin proves that the 
grace of God is mightier than sin. It puts a premium 
on divine grace. People who are saved from sin are 
samples of what God can do and people who are not 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 5 

saved from sin are samples of what Satan can do* 
There has been a great contest between God and 
Satan in all ages of the world. And it is still going 
on. The battle never was hotter in any age than to- 
day. When God would save Israel from its back- 
sliding, he took Joshua, the high priest, and his fellow 
priests and made them symbols of his saving grace 
and declared they were types of what he could do in 
saving men from sin. (See Zechariah 3:7.) There 
are plenty of people who preach up the power of 
Satan and declare that he can make sinners but deny 
that our God can make saints. Let them preach up 
the power of Satan if they will, but we will magnify 
the grace of God and declare that the divine remedy 
is more than a match for the disease of sin. 

A religion that saves from sin is necessary to 
prove that the Bible is true. Either our Bible is "a 
cunningly devised fable" or it is the word of God. 
If it does not produce holy character then the infidel 
has the best of the argument. The infidel knows it 
teaches a holy life and he says, "But no one has ever 
lived such a life." And when professed Christians 
deny that it is their privilege to be saved from all 
sin, they join hands with infidels. They help tear 
down the temple of Christianity. Christlieb many 
years ago said, "The Christian is the world's Bible. 
They read us instead of the Bible." This was con- 
sidered a very pretty sentiment and was vojced by 
the pulpit and religious press. But it means still 



6 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

more. It means that the Bible is a holy book. It 
is a treatise on holiness. It professes holiness on the 
outside when it carries the title, "Holy Bible. " It 
has holiness on the inside. And in that sense the 
real Christian is the world's Bible. He has the pro- 
fession of holiness on the outside and the experience 
of holiness on the inside. 

Bishop Taylor in his evangelistic work in India 
had a remarkable convert, who gave his experience 
like this. He came across a New Testament some- 
where and read it. He was filled with delight and 
amazement. He said to somebody, "It is a wonder- 
ful book. But of course there are no people that 
live as that book teaches. ' ' The reply was, * l Oh, yes. 
There are many of them in Bombay." He said 
"Show them to 'me." He began to mingle with and 
watch the professed Christians of a nominal church 
of Bombay. He saw how they did business ; how they 
treated their servants and families and came away 
sick at heart, saying, "Alas ! the book is not true. I 
am disappointed." And he gave the matter up. When 
the great revival under Bishop Taylor's preaching 
broke out in Bombay, this man came and looked on. 
He saw drunkards, thieves and harlots saved from 
their sins and believers sanctified, and he said, "The 
book is true after all," and fell down at the foot of 
the cross and got salvation. Holy people are neces- 
sary to prove that the Bible is true. If a man can 
not be saved from all sin, then the Bible is the most 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGIOl 7 

inconsistent, contradictory and deceptive book in 
the world, for no unprejudiced man can read it and 
not know that it commands and promises holiness. 
How ridiculously inconsistent are those followers of 
Jesus, who oppose and fight the work of holiness! 
Better be an out and out infidel than an inconsistent 
professed Christian. ' ' I would thou wert either cold 
or hot, ' ' said Jesus. 

Holiness is a reasonable experience because it is 
divinely commanded. God constantly commands it 
all through his word. This command is so frequent 
that we need not quote. Every Bible student is 
aware of the fact. Whatever God commands is reas- 
onable. He is too good and wise to ask impossibili- 
ties. Average Christians, in spite of the command 
again and again, "Be ye holy," look upon its real- 
ization as fanaticism. Pharaoh very unreasonably 
commanded the Israelites to make brick without fur- 
nishing the material. Our God asks nothing beyond 
our ability or possibility. When he says, "Be ye 
holy," he means we can be holy. Every command 
implies the power to obey. Every command has a 
promise in its bosom. A command means "I will 
give you the grace and power to obey me, whenever 
your own strength fails." 

It is said that John Wesley once asked his brother, 
Charles, "If the Lord commanded you to fly, what 
would you do?" The reply was, "If the Lord asked 
me to fly, I would expect him to furnish me wings." 



8 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

John in turn replied "If the Lord conmmanded me 
to fly, I would fly, wings or no wings. " 

When the man with the withered hand stood be- 
fore Jesus, the latter said, "Stretch forth thy hand." 
That was what he had been unable to do. The link 
between the mind and body was missing. When he 
willed his hand would not obey. But at the command 
of Jesus he exerted his will and the missing link was 
supplied by divine power and his hand went forth. 
So it is in obeying the command to be holy. We are 
as unable to make ourselves holy as this man was to 
stretch forth his hand but if we will to be holy with 
all our souls, he will supply the power and make us 
holy. We do not have to try to persuade God to 
make us holy. He has been persuaded for thousands 
of years. 

Holiness is reasonable because it is deeply imbed- 
ded in the human conscience, that man ought to be 
holy. We find men seeking to be holy even among 
the heathen. They are bathing in sacred rivers, tor- 
turing their bodies, measuring their length across 
continents, fasting, torturing themselves, to be made 
holy. 

In Christian lands men are criticising the faults 
of their neighbors and demanding a perfect human- 
ity. The need of holiness is felt by all men, under the 
urging of a guilty conscience. In its last analysis 
what is holiness? It is being right. That is all. 
And the universal conscience of the race demands 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 9 

that man be right. Whatever is universally admit- 
ted as a trend of our nature is right. Innate ideas 
are current ideas. This is common sense in religion. 
John Fletcher, the saint of early Methodism, reas- 
ons with opposers who deny that God instantly 
makes man holy, thus, "For where is the absurdity 
of the doctrine? If the light of a candle, brought 
into a dark room, can instantly expel the darkness; 
and if, upon opening the shutters, at noon, your 
gloomy apartment can be instantly filled with mer- 
idian light ; why might not the instantaneous rending 
of the veil of unbelief, or the sudden and full open- 
ing of the eye of faith, instantly fill your soul with 
the light of truth and the fire of love, supposing the 
Sun of Eighteousness arise upon you with healing in 
his wings? May not the Sanctifier descend upon 
your waiting soul as quickly as the Spirit descended 
upon your Lord in baptism? Did it not descend as a 
dove ; that is with the swift motion of a dove, which 
swiftly shoots down, and instantly alights ? A good 
man once said, ' A mote is little when compared with 
the sun, but I am far less when compared with God.' 
Alluding to this comparison, I ask, if the sun could 
instantly kindle a mote ; nay if a burning glass can 
in a moment calcine a bone, and turn a stone into 
lime ; if a dim flame of a candle can, in the twinkling 
of an eye, destroy the flying insect which comes with- 
in its sphere ; how upscriptural and irrational is it 
to suppose that when God fully baptizes a soul with 



10 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

his sanctifying Spirit, and "with the celestial fire of 
his love, he can not in an instant destroy the man of 
s'n, burn up the chaff of corruption, melt the heart 
of stone into a heart of flesh, and kindle the believing 
soul into pure seraphic love." 



CHAPTER II. 
HOLINESS GLORIFIES GOD. 

THERE ARE many reasons why we should be 
holy. But the chief reason is because it glorifies 
God. He says, "Be ye holy for I am holy." That 
is, "My child, I am holy and that is sufficient reason 
why you should be holy." Whatever glorifies God 
is reasonable. It is founded on the laws of common 
sense. 

Let us see more fully how holiness in man glorifies 
God. In order to more clearly illustrate this truth, 
let us see how else God is glorified. 

Inanimate nature glorifies God. It manifests his 
glory everywhere. The Psalmist says, ' ' The heavens 
declare the glory of Godrand the firmameijt showeth 
forth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech: 
and night unto night showeth knowledge." By 
a beautiful rhetorical figure he represents one day, 
as it departs, telling the succeeding day the glories 
of God, which it has witnessed, and each night tell- 
ing the succeeding night what of divine glory it has 
seen. The glorious sun by day and the countless 
orbs of night are unceasingly reflecting the glory of 
God. No devout mind can gaze on the starry heav- 
ens without awe and devotion, The sun shining in 



12 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

majestic glory reminded David of his Ood and he ex- 
claimed, "The Lord God is a sun." His glory, like 
the beams of the sun shines upon those who love him. 
When we look into the mighty heavens, we see mil- 
lions of preachers who are telling of the glory of our 
great and wonderful God, "who stretcheth out the 
heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a 
tent. ' ' No wonder some one has said, "An undevout 
astronomer is mad." No sane man can view the 
heavens and not believe in God. How the glory and 
pomposity of man fade into insignificance ! No won- 
der that David said, "When I consider thy heavens, 
the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which 
thou hast ordained ; what is man that thou art mind- 
ful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest 
him?" The heavens and earth show the divine 
glory by exhibiting him as a designer. The supreme 
Architect of the universe has revealed everywhere 
the proofs of his greatness in design. 

Go through a house or even view it from the out- 
side and you will see the thought of the architect 
wrought out as clearly as if he had written it out in 
full and signed his name. He may never have seen 
the house himself, but his thought is seen in it. 

As one visits Westminster Abbey, which contains 
the monuments of the illustrious dead of England, he 
sees an inscription at the entrance like this, "Sir 
Christopher Wren, the architect of this building. 
Would you see his monument? Then look around 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 13 

you." Would you see the monument of the great 
Architect of the Universe? Then look around you 
by day and by night. St. Paul says, "The invisible 
things of him from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
made." See the evidences of design in the move- 
ments of this little world. It turns on its axis a 
complete revolution in twenty-four hours. And thus 
we have day and night — a time for toil and a time 
for rest. Then while it is spinning like a school 
boy's top, it also goes around the sun once a year in 
an elliptical pathway, inclining at an angle sufficient 
to produce the changes of the seasons. "What force 
or power could have accomplished this ? Only an in- 
telligent being. Day and night and the changes of 
the seasons are in exact succession. 

Look at our little moon, our lamp by night, which 
causes the rise and fall of the tides with the utmost 
exactness. Or consider the wonderful comets that 
visit our skies on exact time after absence of cen- 
turies ; the eclipses of sun and moon, so exact in their 
time as to be foretold by astronomers ; or the courses 
of the millions of stars and planets. Truly the heav- 
ens glorify God as a designer. 

The heavens also show the glory of God in the 
manifestations of his power. Twirl a school boy's 
top and it will go for a moment or more. It would 
be wonderful if the school boy could impart force 
enough to overcome friction and make it spin for an 



14 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

hour or a day. Think of the mighty power that sent 
millions of planets in motion, that still go on after 
thousands of years, without collision. One of the 
jnany comets — Halley's — -for instance, comes to our 
view once in seventy-five years, travelling constantly 
at the rate of sixteen hundred miles per minute. Job 
says, "He stretcheth out the North over the empty 
places and hangs the earth upon nothing.' ' Every 
where his power is manifest. It flashes in the light- 
nings, booms in the thunder, roars in the cataract, 
sweeps in the tornado and chants in the waves, cease- 
less rythm on the rock-bound shores of old ocean. 

His power is revealed in the creation of the worlds 
of space. Our little world (one of the smallest of 
them) displays his glorious power and wisdom, when 
he scooped out the ocean, and carved the mountains, 
fashioned the lowly valleys, smoothed out the plains 
and prairies, cut out the channels of the rivers, wrap- 
ped'the fiery core of the earth with belts of minerals 
and fuel, put on a cover of soil, carpeted it with 
green and garnished it with the majestic forests, dec- 
orated it with its ten millions of flowers, hung up 
on its walls the paintings of gorgeous sunrises and 
sunsets and hung out the lamps of heaven to illum- 
inate its nights. As the poet says: 

"The valleys and the mountains, 
The woodland and the plain, 
The rivers and the fountains, 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 15 

The sunshine and the rain, 
The stars that shine above us, 
The flowers that deck the sod, 
Proclaim aloud the glory of our God." 

Then he swathed it in an atmosphere of oxygen, 
fifty miles deep, for the lungs of man and beast. He 
gave its soil fertility, that it might bring forth "seed 
for the sower and bread for the eater, " and gave the 
vegetable creation — a perfect organization in fam- 
ilies from the "hyssop that grows on the wall," to 
the tall cedars of Lebanon, and the giant trees of 
California. These are thy works, Parent of Good. 
"In wisdom hast thou made them all." 

The animal creation manifests the glory of God. 
His works are perfect in the construction of the va- 
rious species, from the cricket on the hearth to the 
behemoth who churns the waves of old ocean; from 
the insect that lives but a day to -the megatherium, 
who lifted his head above the ancient forests. The 
divine wisdom has shown as much care and skill in 
the delicate tint on the wing of the butterfly as the 
majestic form of the royal lion. He knows every 
animalcule who sports with his million brothers in a 
single drop of water. His care is over the sparrow. 
He sees and causes the happiness of the myriad in- 
sects that sport in he sunshine of the summer's day. 
He has made arrangements for the food of the beast 
of the field. He has adapted the fish to the sea and 



16 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

the birds to the air. He endows them all with mar- 
velous instinct. "We have no space 1 to enlarge on the 
wonders of the animal kingdom. But it everywhere 
manifests the glory of God. 

The spiritual and physical nature of man glorify 
God. The soul of man created in the image of God ! 
What a nature ! What power and capabilities ! Psy- 
chologists are still studying it and have not yet fully 
comprehended it, after thousands of years. See its 
triumph over nature and the brute creation. It has 
not only overcome much of the ruggedness of nature 
and gained dominion over the brute creation but it 
has climbed to the stars and measured their velocity 
and discovered their substance and laws of motion. 
By its inventions it has enabled man to whisper 
through the seas and air ; to live beneath the waters 
and mount into the sky. It has harnessed the light- 
nings and made them do its bidding. It has been 
gifted with a free will that can even defy the Omnip- 
otent One himself. 

God has incased this indescribable soul in the 
tabernacle of a wonderful body. Scientific men are 
still studying its mysteries. It is one of the most 
perfect instruments ever made. What a variety of 
processes are constantly going on in this marvel of 
the Creator's handiwork. In man's body are a chem- 
ical laboratory, an observatory, a telephone, a system 
of sewerage, hydraulics, a system of ventilation, a 
telegraph system, a refrigerating process, "a talking 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 17 

machine, a system of levers and mechanical powers, a 
reproductive agency, a system of musical instru- 
ments, and other wonders all in a small compass. 
There never has been anything ever made or dreamed 
of in the world that contains so much in so small 
space. It is a manifestation of the power and skill 
of our wonderful Creator. 

The angels glorify God. They tell forth his glory 
and holiness. Without doubt reference is made to 
them in Job 38 where it says "the morning stars 
sang together and all the sons of God shouted for 
joy" in creation's morning. Isaiah had a glimpse 
into heaven and heard the seraphim crying, "Holy, 
holy, holy Lord God of hosts, the whole earth is full 
of thy glory. " Over the plains of Bethlehem, they 
shouted, "Glory to God in the highest." Yes, the 
angels glorify God. The Psalmist says in Psalm 
148, "Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise 
ye him from the heights. Praise ye him, all his an- 
gels; praise ye him, all his hosts." 

But alas ! there is a sad side to the picture. Devils 
and wicked men do not praise God or glorify him. 
"While the angels and all nature are glorifying God 
tjiere are two classes that do not glorify him. They 
are devils and wicked men. There is a dark abode 
where "no Sabbath's heavenly light shines." Where 
no praise or glory is ever given to God. Hallelujahs 
never break the awful monotony of its wails and 
curses. There wicked spirits and men show forth 



18 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

only the heinousness of sin. The very absence of 
praise, by contrast, shows what a blessed privilege it 
is to live' where men do glorify God. "Wicked men, 
who do not glorify God, are like devils. What com- 
pany are unsaved men preparing themselves for! 

We have now reached the point where we may in- 
quire what is the highest glory of God. It is not in 
his attributes. Omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness 
as displayed in the universe are not the manifesta- 
tions of the highest glory of God. His real glory is 
something far beyond these. His highest glory i& 
in his holy nature. He is unique in this respect. He 
is the only absolutely holy being in the universe. 

Inanimate nature cannot manifest his holiness. Na- 
ture can not display his perfect love. It can tell his 
wisdom, but fails to display his love. The lightning 
displays his terrific power, but can not show his 
mercy. Gravitation and magnetism display his po- 
tent arm but never can reveal his holiness or his love 
that stoops to save a fallen race. When God over- 
threw Pharaoh and his hosts in the Red Sea, Moses 
and the children of Israel sang a song of triumph 
and thanksgiving to God. If ever there was a time 
or an occasion for celebrating 'the displays of omni- 
potence that overthrew the great army of Pharaoh, it 
was at this time. But they sang about his holy char- 
acter saying, "Who is like unto thee, 0, Lord, glor- 
ious in holiness, fearful in praises.' ' The theme of 
their song was the holiness of Jehovah. 



COMMON SENSE IN KELIGION 19 

Moses prayed that God would show him the divine 
glory. Doubtless Moses expected something spec- 
tacular, that would appeal to the senses — a vision 
seen by the natural eye. The divine answer to his 
prayer was, "I will make my goodness to pass before 
thee." His highest glory is in his goodness, not in 
his attributes. When the angels spoke to the shep- 
herds they said "Glory to God in the Highest." That 
is, in the highest degree. The announcement of Je- 
sus, the Saviour, the announcement of the love and 
mercy of God in sending a saviour to a lost world. 

Consequently man is the only being who can prop- 
erly glorify God, in all the world. Inanimate nature 
can not display his holiness. The animal creation can 
display and glorify his wisdom and power only. An- 
gels are not permitted to come to earth to display it. 
Devils neither would nor could. So man is the only 
being who can properly show that God is holy. This 
means much, for God is not only holy, but he is a 
specialist on holiness, as is shown all through the 
Bible. The first thing he did after he brought the Is- 
raelites out of the degradation of Egypt was to give 
them lessons in holiness. They were so ignorant that 
he began his instruction by object lessons. He sep- 
arated the animals into the two classes — the clean 
and unclean — and commanded the Israelites to offer 
only the clean animals in their sacrifices. Thus 
teaching them, that he was a holy being, wh@ de- 
manded the clean and best offerings. A recent writ- 



20 COMMON SENSE IN BELIGION 

er has said, "God has a passionate desire and love 
for holiness. "When he punishes sins, he at the same 
time shows his love for holiness. He not only 
punished the ante-diluvian world but at the same 
time he showed his love for holiness by washing 
the earth clean with water. He not only showed 
his hatred for sin by punishing filthy Sodom 
but showed his love for holiness by purging the 
whole country with fire and brimstone. He not only 
drove out the Canaanites as a punishment for their 
sins, but he settled the country with his own people, 
and made it the location of his own temple/' He 
gave us only one book, and that book makes a spec- 
ialty of holiness. Browning in his Epistle of Kar- 
shish gives the experience of Lazarus after he came 
back from the dead and says he came back to earth 
with new sense of spirituality and a passion for 
holiness, such as he never had before. If we should 
be allowed, like Lazarus to return from the dead, 
what enthusiasm we would have for holiness. Some 
of us are called enthusiasts on holiness, but if we 
should come back from the dead, our present interest 
in holiness would be but as child's play, in compar- 
ison. No wonder the angels shouted, "Glory to God 
in the highest/ 7 as the plan of saving men from sin 
and making them holy began to unfold, after a prep- 
aration of four thousand years. No wonder Isaiah, 
as he caught the vision of him, who was "coming 
from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah" 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 21 

mighty to save, cried "Who is this?" No wonder 
Gabriel told Joseph, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus 
for he shall save his people from their sins." John 
the Baptist wished his disciples to know that the 
great mission of Jesus was to "take away the sin of 
the world." And John, the beloved disciple, de- 
clared that Jesus came to destroy the works of the 
devil, and that his blood "cleanseth us from all sin." 
No wonder Paul declares, "Wherefore Jesus that he 
might sanctify the people with his own blood suffer- 
ed without the gate," and Peter said, "Who his own 
self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we be- 
ing dead to sin might live unto God, by whose stripes 
we are healed." ' The great event of history is that 
God gave his Son to make us holy. This was the 
greatest act of God, ever yet revealed. This is the 
crown of his glory. The great glory of Jesus Christ, 
who came to earth to represent God, was his holy 
character. His death exhibited the divine glory in 
its power to save sinners from sin. What was his 
hurling tens of millions of newly created worlds off 
the tips of his fingers into space, compared with the 
displays of his holiness and his atonement to make 
holy. As the poet says : 

' 'Twas great to speak a world from naught, 
'Twas greater to redeem." 

The angels shouted for joy at the creation of the 
world, but they did not shout, "Glory to God in the 



22 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

highest/ ' until they came to announce a Saviour that 
should save men from sin. This was glory in the 
highest degree. 

Inanimate nature can not be holy. The animal 
creation can not reflect the holiness of God. Angels 
are not allowed to come to this world to do it. Theirs 
is the subordinate position of guarding the saints. 
Devils neither can nor will glorify God. Consequent- 
ly only men can glorify God in the highest, by being 
made holy, through the blood of Jesus. 

Let us see more particularly why Christians glor- 
ify God by being holy. 1. Because we are his chil- 
dren. We have been adopted into the divine family 
by reason of the new birth and have become "par- 
takers of the divine nature/' and are "heirs of God, 
and joint heirs with Jesus Christ/' who is our ex- 
ample. His great life purpose was to glorify his 
Father. He said to the Father, "I have glorified 
thee upon the earth," and he said of his disciples, "I 
am glorified in them." "We then are to glorify God 
as Jesus did. How did Jesus glorify the Father? 
In wisdom and in power? But others had done that. 
Elijah brought glory to the power of God in raising 
the widow's son. Solomon glorified God in display- 
ing the wisdom he received from Go<i. But, besides 
displaying divine wisdom and power in his wonder- 
ful words and works, Jesus .glorified him in the 
highest degree by the display of his holiness. After 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 23 

two thousand yeara. of the study of his holy charac- 
ter, like his seamless garment, men find no flaw in it. 
The holiness of Jesus is greater than all his miracles. 
It is the miracle of the ages. We are to be like 
him, our elder brother, in glorifying God in holiness. 
Nor is this unreasonable. An honest child glorifies 
an honest parent, and a holy child of God glorifies 
a holy God. Why should it be thought unreasonable 
for a child to be like his parent ? That is the reason 
God wants his children to be holy, because he is holy. 
''Be ye holy for I am holy." St. Peter therefore 
says, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye 
might show forth the praises of him, who hath called 
you out of darkness into his marvelous light.' 9 

Any one, viewing the sunset for the first time, 
might conclude that it had disappeared forever. But 
there is a way of proving that the sun is still shining 
although we can not see it, for the light of the moon 
is but the reflection of the light of the sun, as in a» 
mirror. The holy man is like the planet that bor- 
rows its light from the sun. As long as we see his 
holy life we know there is a holy God, for he shines 
in the light of holiness that is not natural to him, and 
can not be accounted for on natural principles. It 
comes from God. This is what Jesus meant when 
he said, "Let your light so shine before men that 
they may see your good works and glorify your Fa- 
ther which is in heaven." A holy man proves the 



24 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

holiness of God. Jesus says, "Be ye therefore per- 
feet even as your Father in heaven is perfect." And 
Peter says, "As obedient children, not fashioning 
yourselves according to your former lusts, but as he 
that has called you is holy so be ye holy in all man- 
ner of living for it is written, Be ye holy for I am 
holy." We never can truly glorify God until we are 
holy. Any sin in us glorifies Satan. 

2. We ought to be holy to glorify him because we 
are his workmanship. God originally created man 
in his own image, which is "righteousness and true 
holiness." And every individual restored from sin 
to holiness is a specimen of his saving work. Paul 
^says, "We are his workmanship." We are "built 
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets." A 
building reflects the mind of him who designed and 
built it, God is showing the world that he can make 
saints out of sin cursed humanity. There are some 
wondrous processes of making things of beauty, call- 
ed the by-products, out of refuse. Go to the great 
stockyards of the land and we find nothing wasted. 
Every bit of refuse is made useful. God has Been 
doing this for centuries. It is related of a beautiful 
cathedral in Europe, that the most beautiful window 
was made by an apprentice. The young man took the 
broken bits of glass that his master had thrown 
away and made the window that surpassed the best 
work his master had ever done. The master could 
not endure to be eclipsed by his apprentice and com- 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 25 

mitted suicide. This is just what Jesus Christ has 
been doing for two thousand years. He has been 
taking the ruined broken bits of humanity and mak- 
ing saints of them, when it would seem that the devil 
had ruined them forever. Paul spoke of some at 
Corinth who were samples of the divine saving pow- 
er thus, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neith- 
er idolaters, nor fornicators, nor adulterers, nor ef- 
feminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 
por thieves, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extor- 
tioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such 
were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are 
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the 
Lord Jesus and by the spirit of God." He says a 
little farther on, "Ye are the temple of the living 
God." "What a transformation, from the worst ot 
moral conditions ! "Without doubt the Apostle John 
is the most saintly character in the New Testament. 
We love to think of him as the most Christlike char- 
acter of the Bible. But what was he before he was 
transformed by divine power? A rough, turbulent* 
vindictive, revengeful man. He and his brother, 
James, were called the "sons of thunder" because 
of their turbulent dispositions. They wanted, at one 
time, to pray down fire from heaven upon those who 
slighted them. They wanted the best places in the 
kingdom. John wanted Jesus to forbid others to 
work in his name. But what a change came over 



26 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

him! He testifies to a glorious experience. Hear 
him: "Of his fullness have we all received. Herein 
is our love made perfect." "We ought to love one 
another." How such cures extol and glorify the 
Great Physician. A holy heaven filled with saved 
sinners will be the glory of God throughout eternity. 
It must delight the angels as they see one after an- 
other who have escaped the pollution of sin enter 
eternal glory with their robes washed and made 
white in the blood of the Lamb. The glory of the 
material universe pales into insignificance before the 
glory of redemption. Is it any wonder then that God 
says in Psalms 50, "Gather together my saints. They 
that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice?" 
In another place he calls them his jewels. 

3. Holiness in man glorifies God because it is his 
vindication. Holiness is not at a premium in this 
world at present. Sin and error are popular. There 
are millions of people, who do not believe that God 
can make and keep man holy in this world. They 
believe Satan has more power than God in this 
world. "We see an instance of this in the experience 
of Job. The Lord said he was perfect but Satan de- 
nied it, claiming that Job was living a sham holiness. 
Notwithstanding all this unbelief, even among pro- 
fessed Christians, the Bible has always taught it. It 
is the nucleus of the Ten Commandments. David 
and Solomon urged it. Hezekiah came up to it. 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Joei prophesied it. 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 27 

John the Baptist and Jesus preached it. John and 
Paul professed and taught it. All this when the devil 
was getting in his strongest blows against God and 
righteousness. The devil and wicked men are sneering 
at it today. Infidelity is saying, "Your Bible teaches 
holiness, but it is &n impossibility; therefore your 
Bible is a cunningly devised fable." 

But God always has a way of vindicating himself 
and his truth in all ages. See for instance how he 
vindicated the claims of Jesus on the cross. He had 
been condemned for blasphemy in claiming to be the 
divine King of the Jews. What ridicule they pour- 
ed upon his kingly claims. They arrayed him in 
mock royal robes ; put a reed in his hand for a scep- 
tre and placed a thorny crown on his head, and 
shouted, "Hail, King of the Jews." Oh, what a jest 
it was with them that this despised man should claim 
to be the king. But see how God vindicated his 
claim. To their dismay and chagrin, Pilate wrote 
over the cross in the three great languages of the 
world, "This is the King of the Jews." In spite of 
their opposition the truth came out. But still more 
astonishing was the utterance of the dying thief. 
While the chief priests and rabble and soldiers were^ 
deriding and mocking his claim as king, the dying 
thief cries, "Lord, remember me when thou comest 
into thy kingdom. " He recognized the king ; believ- 
ed that that suffering, abused, thorned crowned man 
at his side had a kingdom, and prayed to be in it. The 



28 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

divine claim of kingship was vindicated in the eyes 
of impartial people. 

And, so have we seen it, in the thickest of the 
fight. When men were denying the possibility of 
being holy in this life, humble souls have stepped in- 
to the cleansing fountain. Thank God the work 
goes on. This can be clearly seen by those who have 
eyes to see. "He shall see the travail of his soul 
and be satisfied/' said Isaiah. Every sanctified soul 
yindicates the divine claim of making men holy. It 
is vindicated in the eyes of angels and good men. 
Let men take their brooms and try to keep back the 
tides of the ocean or attempt to pen up a cyclone in 
a pill box and they will have an easy task in compar- 
ison with stopping the vindication of the holiness 
that God has given those who take advantage of the 
atonement that saves from all sin. 

Again we have proved that holiness is the most 
reasonable thing in the world, for it brings the high- 
est glory to God. 



CHAPTER III. 

HOLINESS AUGMENTS OUR INFLUENCE FOR 
GOOD 

It is a solemn thing to die; to leave home and 
friends and loved ones ; to go out into the untried 
realities of eternity; perhaps in dying to straggle 
with pain and disease; to go to the Judgment; and 
to have our destiny forever settled. But it is a more 
solemn thing to live. We used to think death was 
the most solemn event but we have revised our opin- 
ion. It is more solemn to live. 

"Whac strange notions men have of life and death! 
When a child dies we weep and lament. It ought to 
be the reverse, for it has escaped the ills of this life. 
It will not be caught in the pitfalls and snares of 
sin (and they were never more numerous than now). 
The atonement of Jesus Christ covers its sinfulness. 
It is safe. Many a fond parent has had to lament 
that wayward children were not taken in infancy. 
We ought to rejoice that a bud has been transplant- 
ed to unfold in heaven. When a child is born, how 
we rejoice ! How we receive the congratulatiohs of 
others and congratulate ourselves. Whereas, we 
•have good occasion for fear and trembling. We 
know not what awaits that child. Whether it shall 
so live as to make a safe run through the gauntlet of 



30 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

its foes and reach heaven or whether it will dwell in 
the regions of the lost. 

Life is solemn because we are on probation for 
eternity. If we are saved and die today we will go 
safe to Abraham's bosom. We may live a century 
and be lost. This life is the stage where we are act- 
ing out eternal verities. Every day we are not only 
working out our salvation or damnation but we are 
also influencing all whom we meet. Our influence is 
making those about us better or worse. It is a diffi- 
cult thing to live and be able to exert the right kind 
of influence all the time. It is indeed a difficult 
thing to do. We may be too gay or too grave ; too 
serious or too gay ; too repellent in our daily life or 
too frivolous. Either extreme may turn men away 
from God. It is a delicate matter indeed therefore 
to be able always to exert the proper influence. 

We need therefore to be holy in order to have the 
best influence of which we are capable. Here is 
where the reasonableness of holiness appears. Many 
a Christian man or woman, who loves his children, is 
grieved at his influence over them, because he can 
not control an evil disposition, that causes his life to 
contradict his profession. Holiness is therefore a 
merciful provision to help us in this respect. It is 
an emergency brake to keep us from crushing our 
hopes for the salvation of our families and neighbors. 
It is a reservoir to help us out when the streams of 
human love fail. It isia sinking fund to keep us from 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 31 

spiritual bankruptcy. Consider our influence. It is 
threefold. 

First, there is the influence of words. How mighty 
they are. These impulses of sounding breath modu- 
lated by the organs of speech or these arbitrary char- 
acters written by pen or pencil or typewriter, how 
mighty they are, because they are the expression of 
ideas. They communicate thought. They fall on 
the ear or meet the eye of others and influence them. 
We are giving and receiving such influence all the 
time. The mighty rushing wind of the tornado is 
eclipsed by the power of words. 

Consider the power of our own words upon our- 
selves. St. James says of the tongue, "The tongue 
is a fire, a world of iniquity : so is the tongue among 
our members that it defileth the whole body, and set- 
teth on fire the course of nature ; and it is set on fire 
of Hell." Our own wicked words inflame our own 
anger. Our lustful words add fuel to our lust. Our 
words of unbelief increase our own unbelief. Our 
words of discouragement increase our own discour- 
agement. Or our words of faith and courage increase 
our own faith and courage. Our tongue has much 
to do in its influence upon ourselves. 

Then there is the influence of oratory, and the 
witchery of song, upon others. A poor monk in Eu- 
rope visits the sepulchre of Jesus in Jerusalem. He 
is so grieved that it should be in the possession of 



32 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

the infidel Turks, that his soul rises in hot indigna- 
tion, and he travels from country to country of Eu- 
rope with burning words urging the rescue of Jeru- 
salem from the Turks. All Europe is aroused and 
the Crusades take place. Hundreds of thousands of 
men and children march upon Jerusalem. Thou- 
sands perish and only after centuries does the move- 
ment stop. The Crusaders return defeated, but they 
bring back the arts and sciences of the East, which 
revolutionize the civilization of all Europe. Martin 
Luther stands before the Emperor, who commands 
him to recant. He replies, "Here on the scriptures 
I take my stand. I can do no otherwise." These 
words produce an effect on the whole world that is 
indescribable. The Emperor knows not what to do. 
The whole world is astonished. The Pope is dumb- 
founded. The courage of every lover of liberty is 
revived and the Reformation is born. The Virginian 
statesman declares, "Give me liberty or give me 
death," and the American. Revolution is born, with 
results as far reaching as eternity. 

Oh, the power of our words ! You can quench the 
fires of the forest, when the last tree is burned, but 
you can not stop the influence of that hasty, harsh, 
angry word spoken yesterday. It can not be recall- 
ed. You may obtain forgiveness of God and man, 
but still the influence of that word will go on, cut- 
ting, scorching the sensitive soul to whom it was* 
spoken, and influencing character forever. 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 33 

Think of the influence of the words of him, who 
spake "as man never spoke." How they have in- 
fluenced the centuries and are more quoted today 
than the words of any other man who ever lived. .His 
word brought Lazarus from the tomb and it will call 
the sleeping millions from the grave. 

Secondly : We have the influence of actions. It is 
often said that "actions speak louder than words." 
This is true. Words are not always an index of 
character but actions are. Our actions may make 
our words more emphatic or they may neutralize 
them. Jesus said of the Pharisees, * \ They say and do 
not." This is dissembling and hypocrisy. "It is 
easier to preach than practice" is an old and true 
saying. We have heard of preachers, who when in 
the pulpit, their parishioners wished they never 
would come out; and when out of the pulpit the par- 
ish wished they never would again enter it. Aesop 
has a fable of a crab who reproved his son for walk- 
ing backwards. The son replied, "Father why do 
you walk backwards?" 

We teach more by example than by words. Dur- 
ing the first three years of the life of a child he 
learns more than in any subsequent three years of 
his life. He learns by watching his elders. He is a 
creature of imitation and when he grows to man- 
hood, he is still influenced by example. We are all 
creatures of imitation. One goose drinks because 
another goose drinks. One man drinks whiskey be- 



34 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

cause the other does. The silly fashions are in vogue 
because most people are too weak to resist the ex- 
ample of others. 

When actions go with words, the power of words 
is wonderfully increased and intensified. When 
words say one thing and acts another, the one* neu- 
tralizes the other. It has been well said, "Some peo- 
ple talk cream and live skimmed milk." 

A third kind of influence is that of ourselves. It 
is something besides words or even acts. It is the 
inner man speaking through our words and acts. It 
is "the man behind the gun," the preacher project- 
ing his spirit and inner self upon his congregation. 
It is beyond definition. It is the atmosphere a man 
carries with him. It causes people to take an inven- 
tory of their moral and spiritual quality. It is the im- 
pression of ourselves on others. 

For instance, when Jesus had finished praying in a 
certain place, his disciples asked him, "Lord, teach 
us to pray." There was such a sanctity, such a holy 
influence that proceeded from him that the disciples 
wanted to learn to pray. Our silent influence is our 
real influence. It proceeds from us when we are off 
our guard and are not making strenuous effort or do- 
ing or trying to do some great act. It is the spirit 
that saturates our words and actions. It is the way 
we take slights and affronts. It is the man behind 
the testimony that gives it effect. We have all seen 
the locomotive headlight shine its rays, hundreds of 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 35 

yards ahead on the track. We have lamps in our 
houses just as large. But the lamp of the locomotive- 
has a reflector behind it, that makes its light so ef- 
fective. And so is a holy life behind a testimony to 
give it effect. 

It is possible to advocate holiness in such an un- 
holy manner as to destroy the effect of sound doc- 
trine and straight testimony. One can throw a bone 
to a hungry dog in such a manner as to cause him to 
flee. On the other hand a cup of cold water may be 
given in the name of a disciple, with such a gracious 
spirit as to merit the favor of heaven and enrich 
both the giver and receiver. 

The man himself may neutralize his best efforts, 
by his evil spirit. Paul says that if we could speak 
like angels, yet without love, it is empty sound. This 
is the reason that so many infidels are bred in pro- 
fessed Christian homes. Father and Mother failed 
to have a religion that sweetened their lives and in 
spite of their profession of religion, children did not 
want it. Some of the most noted infidels in America 
were brought up by parents who professed to be 
followers of Jesus Christ, whose religion did not save 
them from an evil disposition. Apples that grow in 
the shade are the sourest. 

Mankind estimate men from the standpoint of 
their moral character, no matter how great their 
gifts. In reviewing the lives of the great men of 
the world, the estimate is always based upon their 



36 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

moral character. Who thinks of the military genius 
of Napoleon without having loom up in the back- 
ground of the picture his inordinate ambition that 
led him to seek his own selfish interests at the price 
of the blood of thousands. Who thinks of the tal- 
ented Henry Clay without also calling to mind his 
assertion, "I had rather be right than to be presi- 
dent.' ' Who can think of Daniel Webster, with his 
colossal intellect, without a regret at his compromise 
of principle in his ambition to obtain the presidency? 

Such is the penetrating power of a holy man that 
it can not be hid. He may be shut up in the most 
adverse surroundings. He may be hid away in the 
desert, but the world will find him out. Holy char- 
acter is at a premium in this world. It is more rare 
than precious stones. John the Baptist was a man 
"filled with the Holy Ghost/ '■ He preached in the 
wilderness and all the nation left the cities and went 
to sit at his feet and listen to his ministry. 

Some years ago in New York City, a woman lost 
her husband. She was exceedingly rebellious against 
God. Mrs. Sarah Lankf ord Palmer visited her and 
showed her that her spirit was wicked. Her heart 
was melted. She repented of her sins and was re- 
claimed from a backslidden condition. Later she 
was wholly sanctified and a most remarkable career 
followed. She was prostrated on a sick bed for over 
fifty years. Her holy character shone from that bed 
of sickness all over the world. People came to that 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 37 

sick room from foreign lands. Hundreds were con- 
verted at her bedside. She became the medium 
through whom the rich disbursed their charity to the 
poor. Her face in her portrait shines like the face 
of an angel. People found her out although her 
little cottage was in the poorer locality of the city, 
located behind a saloon. For holy character can not 
be hid. She was called "The saint of Rose Hill." 
The street commissioners of New York deferred the 
widening of the street while she lived, for it would 
require the destruction or removal of her humble 
cottage. Such is the influence of a holy life. 

"We knew a little, sainted woman, who lived a 
humble life. She obtained the blessing of a pure 
heart after a great struggle. From that time she 
shone. Everywhere she went people felt the quiet, 
persuasive influence of her life. It was her delight 
to visit the homes of the people in a great city and 
recommend the religion of Jesus Christ. "When she 
died, a great city church was filled with a weeping 
throng of mingled Protestants, Catholics and Jews. 
iShe was not a public character, but this was the 
tribute to a holy life. The officiating preacher said, 
" Holiness is at premium today." The pastor said, 
"I always knew she was praying for me in the pew, 
in the public service." Church leaders among the 
laity said, "There is something more than the ordin- 
ary religious life in this woman's experience." Ear- 
ly acquaintances smote on their breast and cried, 



38 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

1 ' She lived a sainf but we are failures. ' ' Such is the 
power of a holy life. 

The greatest power of Jesus was not in his mir- 
acles but in his holy character. This has influenced 
the world more than anything that ever came to it. 
Francis Willard said she visited a small town in 
England, that was eminently moral and spiritual. 
An old man gave the reason for it thus : " There was 
a man named John Wesley, who once came to this 
town and it has never been the same since/ 9 We may 
say in a larger sense, there was a man, named Jesus 
of Nazareth, who came to this world and held up his 
perfect life and character and this world has never 
been the same since he lived here. 

We see then with our threefold influence what a 
solemn thing it is to live. How much we need holi- 
ness of heart — not merely to help us speak and act 
right, but to saturate our words and acts. Without 
it we shall fail in our influence upon others. With 
it our influence will be a savour of life in spite of our 
mistakes. People will overlook our blunders if they 
can feel the genuine sincerity of our hearts. This is 
a weighty reason why every one, especially parents, 
should have the blessing of a holy heart. 

There are five languages, four of which all of us 
talk. There is the language of the hands; hand 
writing /md that spoken by the deaf and dumb and 
read by the blind. There is the language of the 
tongue. Then there is the language of the ear, of 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 39 

those who can understand a language who can not 
speak it. Then there is the language of the eye, 
which takes in a language although we can not speak 
it. Many an Englishman can read the French lan- 
guage which he can not speak. But most impor- 
tant of all is the language of the inner man who 
speaks in our tones and gestures and gives a mean- 
ing often times entirely different from the words we 
use. We may be talking one thing in our words and 
saying an entirely different thing in our tones and 
facial expression. This latter language is what 
counts. How important then that "the hidden man 
of the heart' ' be holy, in order to glorify God! 

We therefore arrive at the conclusion that we 
must be holy in order to have the right influence over 
those we love in winning (and not repelling) them 
to Christ. We are responsible for what we are, 
therefore as well as for what we say or do. If we 
saw a man drowning and could help him and would 
not, we are responsible tor his life. Under the Jew- 
ish economy if a man owned an ox that was vicious 
and he knew it and the ox gored another man to 
death, the owner was held guilty of murder, and he 
and the ox were stoned to death. If you had a mad 
dog and he bit someone, who died, if you knew he 
was mad and did not take proper precaution, you 
would be guilty of murder. If you had a deadly 
disease and did not seek to avoid healthy people, but 
they took the disease and died because of your con- 



40 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

tagion, you would be guilty. If you have not been 
sanctified wholly you have something worse than 
physical disease. It is soul disease, called depravity 
that has a baneful influence on those with whom you 
associate. It manifests itself in your spirit as well 
as your words and just as far as you see your priv- 
ilege to get rid of it and will not, you are responsible 
for your influence. Tremendous thought! We are 
our brother's keepers in this world. No man can 
properly glorify God who has in him that mortgage 
held by Satan. We mean the carnal mind. There- 
fore it is most reasonable that our religion should 
save us from it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOLINESS EQUIPS EOR SERVICE 

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 
is come upon you,'* said our Lord in his last talk be- 
fore he ascended to the skies. This assurance was 
given not only for the disciples of that day but for 
the disciples of all time. We have shown in the last 
chapter how great is the power of a holy life in its 
influence. This is the unfolding of that idea. 

There have been many interpretations of the 
11 power " promised at Pentecost. Some have thought 
it was the power to work miracles, but Jesus had al- 
ready given the disciples that power, when he sent 
them out two by two, to preach the kingdom of .God. 
Some have thought it was a magical power to cast a 
spell over men as they preached. But the verse fol- 
lowing seems to naturally explain it. He adds "And 
ye shall be witnesses unto me. " " The power ' \ qual- 
ified them to be witnesses for Jesus. There is much 
in the ministry of testimony, for Spirit-baptized 
Christians to prove the religion of Jesus Christ to be 
true. Testimony is the great agency for spreading 
the gospel. It is on a level in importance (if not 
more important) with preaching. God does not call 
all Christians to preach, but he does call all to testi- 
fy. He expects all preachers to be witnesses. Satan 



42 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

tries to make it appear that it is so difficult to believe 
the Christian religion that the preacher must be al- 
ways trying to prove it by powerful discourses, but 
he does not like to have testimony for men are so 
constituted, that not to accept the testimony of com- 
petent witnesses proves them either dishonest or 
mentally deficient. 

A witness is the most important person in a Court 
of Justice. A trial can be held without a Jury for 
it may be a Justice trial*. It may be held without a 
Judge for it may be held by referees. It may be 
held without a lawyer, for a man may plead his own 
cause. But it not be held without a witness. So 
God chose the most important agency for proving 
disputed points ; when he saw fit to make us all wit- 
nesses, who have a Christian experience, for if there 
be no experience, then Christianity Is "a cunningly 
devised fable." 

Much depends on the character of the witnesses. 
Therefore the empowerment of Pentecost was two- 
fold. First, it is negative. It comes by the elimin- 
ation of the hindrances to consistent testimony. It 
removes the inbred sin or depravity — the great hin- 
drance to testimony. "We have shown in the previous 
chapter that the influence of a holy life is almost 
omnipotent in removing doubt as to the truth of our 
holy religion. Let us notice still farther that with 
the blessing of holiness goes the removal of the hin- 
drances to testimony. An inconsistent life is a great 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 43 

hindrance to testimony. But there are also other 
elements that are removed. The baptism with the 
Holy Ghost removes cowardice. There are many 
well meaning people who would really like to recom- 
mend Jesus Christ by testimony and exhortation, 
who lack the courage. They are ever trembling un- 
der their duty, which they have not the courage to 
discharge. But Pentecost brings courage. It was 
so in the experience of Peter. A maiden frightened 
him into a positive denial of his beloved Lord. So 
shocking was his cowardice, that it led him to pro- 
fanity. But a few days later he stood before the 
Jewish high court and accused them of the murder 
of Jesus Christ. What made the difference? Pente- 
cost. In that short interval his heart had been pur- 
ified. (See Acts 15:9.) The cowardice had been 
burned out by holy fire. Now he was ready and 
anxious to testify. This is what the fiery tongues 
that sat on the heads of the disciples at Pentecost 
symbolized. It meant tongues set on fire to testify 
for Jesus Christ. 

But still farther, indifference, or apathy in the 
matter of the salvation of men is a hindrance to 
testimony. The entire sanctification of Pentecost 
takes away indifference as to the salvation of sinners 
and substitutes a passion for souls. It means perfect 
love to mankind. It makes us anxious — more than 
anxious — to see men saved. It dos not give all the 
gift of evangelism, but it makes them efficient up to 



44 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

their capabilities and gives a constant longing to see 
sinners saved and believers sanctified. This is one 
of the infallible proofs that we have received the 
purifying baptism. But more than this it is positive. 
There is a peculiar unction that attends the testi- 
mony of fully saved men. This is the New Testa- 
ment spirit of prophecy. Peter declared that it ful- 
filled the prophecy of Joel, "Your sons and daugh- 
ters shall prophesy." It is unfortunate that the 
term prophecy has been limited in these days to the 
foretelling of future events. This is a narrow view of 
the word. To prophesy means to speak for another. 
The Old Testament prophets probably were speak- 
ing for God and prophesying as truly when they 
brought the messages of God to kings and potentates, 
as when they predicted future events. It is the 
same under the New Testament dispensation. They, 
who speak for God, whether in sermon or testimony, 
are New Testament prophets. And especially so 
when they have been filled with the Holy Spirit. 

St. Paul says this is more effective than to have 
great and shining gifts. Speaking of the gifts of 
the Spirit in I Cor. 14 :1, he says "Follow after char- 
ity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may 
prophesy." In verse 39 he tells them to "covet to 
prophesy." In some quarters today there is a great 
icoveting to possess gifts, especially of tongues, but 
there is not much coveting to tell of the power of the 
blood that cleanseth from all sin. This is New Test- 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 45 

ament prophecy indeed. There is a very remark- 
able passage in I Cor. 14:23-25 which we quote: "II 
therefore the whole church be come into one place, 
and all speak with tongues and there come in those 
that are unlearned or unbelievers, will they not say 
that ye are mad? But if all prophesy, and there 
come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he 
is convinced of all, he is judged of all : and thus are 
the secrets of his heart made manifest ; and so fall- 
ing down upon his face, he will worship God, and 
report that God is in you of a truth." In other 
words, New Testament prophecy — the testimony of 
Spirit filled believers — will put the unsaved under 
conviction. This is the divine method of carrying 
on the saving power of the Gospel — by the testi- 
mony of Spirit filled men and women. The mod- 
ern method is to leave the whole matter of the 
conviction and conversion of the world to £he pulpit. 
But Jesus gave the first place to testimony. He did 
not say, "Ye shall be my pulpit orators," but "Ye 
shall be witnesses of me." When Lyman Beecher 
was asked the reason for the great revivals under 
his ministry he replied, "I preach to my church on 
Sunday and they go out and preach to the outside 
world through the week and so we have six hundred 
sermons preached all through the week." 

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is the divine 
equipment for this highest service. It is the divine 
endorsement and authorization. A true testimony 



46 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

has the authority of Jehovah behind it. When a 
noted prize fighter was in the ring one day, the sher- 
iff stepped up to him, read a warrant and told him 
to follow him. He submitted to arrest. He could 
have killed the sheriff, who was a small man. But 
the small man had the authority of the state behind 
him and the great brute meekly yielded. State au- 
thority means much. When the government swears 
in the witnesses in court, it means that the authority 
of the whole commonwealth is behind the witness. 
His testimony has to be considered in making up the 
verdict. And when God gives his witnesses the bap- 
tism with the Spirit, they have the authority of Jeho- 
vah behind them and they have to be heard. God said, 
"My word shall not return unto me void." The word 
of God does not return to him void. *This does not 
mean that it always meets with apparent success. 
This is not expected. Its purpose is to force men 
to a decision for or against the truth. When the 
saints prophesy those who hear are forced to a de- 
cision. Such is the office of testimony that is in- 
spired by the Holy Spirit. 

We have some notable instances of the truth that 
holiness increases efficiency. D. L. Moody was a lay 
evangelist in Chicago, accomplishing little. He tells 
us in his autobiography that at one time he was 
greatly bothered by two women, who were constant- 
ly telling him that he needed the Holy Spirit. He 
said that at first he was vexed. But after a time he 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 47 

began to believe they were right. So he appointed a 
meeting every Friday afternoon to pray for the Holy 
Spirit. It was our privilege a few years ago to meet 
one of these women. We asked her if Mr. Moody 
seemed very much in earnest. She replied that he 
was so desperately in earnest at the last Friday meet- 
ing that he was prostrate and literally rolled upon 
the floor, as he prayed for the Holy Spirit. The Chi- 
cago fire broke out the next week and no more meet- 
ings could be held. A little later Mr. Moody receiv- 
ed the baptism with the Spirit, which put an unction 
on his labors and from that time, he became a great 
world-wide, evangelistic power. He urged this ex- 
perience upon the church the remainder of his days. 
Owing to the Calvinistic theology in which he was 
trained he failed to make the matter clear, definite 
and positive in his teaching. He was always urging 
it, but we have never heard of anyone receiving the 
experience under his teaching or preaching. 

James Brainerd Taylor was a young man in 
Princeton College. He had been instructed by a 
pious Methodist concerning the experience of entire 
sanctification. He sought and obtained. His mem- 
ory is still precious in the Congregational churches 
of New England. He became a spiritual power. 
Wherever he went his saintliness beamed upon the 
people. God used him for the salvation of men. One 
day two men on horseback met at the intersection of 
tvrp roads and while the horses were drinking from 



48 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

the water trough, one said to the other, "My dear 
Sir, I trust you are acquainted with the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and if not I hope you may make his acquaint- 
ance. " It was a simple sentence. Just a few words 
but there accompanied it an unction, an air of sanc- 
tity that carried the message to ^he heart of the 
stranger. He could not shake off the impression 
made by the holy light that radiated from that face. 
He yielded to God; was called to the ministry and 
later to the foreign field. He began to inquire who 
the man was who spoke to him at the water trough. 
No one could tell him. One day as he was prepar- 
4 ing for his voyage to heathendom, he received a li- 
brary as a gift. In opening one of the books, he saw 
a portrait on the inside of the cover. He exclaimed, 
"That is the man who spoke to me at the water 
trough." On looking at the title pagv* he read, "The 
Life of J. B. Taylor." 

Holiness is the divine equipment. It is in har- 
mony with common sense that God would equip his 
people with more than mortal energy because of the 
fearful opposition which they meet in carrying on 
the work of God against the combined forces of "the 
world, the flesh and the devil." Human power, un- 
aided, always has and always will fail. 



CHAPTER V. 

HOLINESS IS THE GREAT SAFEGUARD 
AGAINST BACKSLIDING 

MAN IS a backslider. The first man was an apos* 
tate from God. He not only backslid but lie 
transmitted a tendency to backsliding to his poster- 
ity. Every child born into this world comes on the 
stage of action handicapped with this disposition of 
drawing away from God. It is even worse than that. 
He possesses a spirit of hostility to God. Says Paul, 
"The carnal mind is enmity against God." So fatal 
is this disposition that every dispensation since 
Adam has closed in a backslidden state of the gen- 
eral church. Any student of Bible history knows 
this to be true, whether he contemplates the patri- 
archal, the dispensation of the Law, that of the 
Prophets, the short dispensation of the Son of God, 
the Apostolic dispensation or the various religious 
movements of the past eighteen centuries. Backslid- 
ing is the sad history of the church after every great 
revival of history. 

Every convert under the Christian Dispensation 
has felt within himself this same deadly disposition 
that when he would do good prompts him to evil. 
Happy and rare are the instances of those who have 
never yielded to this tendency to draw away from 



50 COMMON SENSE IN EELIGION 

God. On it Satan works as a musician touches the 
keys and pulls the stops of an organ. 

We have numerous instances of backsliding in the 
Scriptures — too numerous to mention. 

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, says, 
"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an 
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living 
God. But exhort one another daily, lest any of you 
be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." He 
shows here that the cause of backsliding is "an evil 
heart of unbelief" which deceitfully hardens the 
heart. 

The history of modern revivals corroborates this 
statement. "We do not believe it is the divine plan 
to have great revivals followed by great re-actions. 
The country is full of backsliders. It is a great hin- 
drance to the progress of Christianity. Thousands 
of people have started in the Christian life with a 
bright experience, who have been overtaken and de- 
feated by the foe within their own bosoms. Their 
evil disposition has caused them to break over and 
commit sin for which they were genuinely sorry, and 
they have renounced the Christian life, saying: "It 
is impossible for me to live it," or "I have such a pe- 
culiar disposition that I can not be good. Other peo- 
ple can be good, but I can not." 

Young converts have gone to their elders saying, 
"I thought I was converted but I think I was mis- 
taken for I get angry sometimes." The reply in 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 51 

some instances has been, "0, yes, you are converted, 
but you must expect that, as long as you live. ' ' This 
his discouraged them. If we can not be saved from 
this disposition then the way to heaven is very diffi- 
cult. This has been voiced truly by thousands in 
the hymn, 

"Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; 
Prone to leave the God I love. ' ' 

And in still another hymn thus : 

"Look how we grovel here below 
Fond of these earthly toys, 
Our souls how heavily they go 
To reach eternal joys." 

There can be no doubt that this is the weak place in 
the religion today. It may be said that many people 
are only seeming backsliders. They were never real- 
ly converted. No doubt this is true. But even after 
that, it must be confessed that there are thousands 
who have been genuinely converted, who have "been 
led away from God by following the tendencies of 
"an evil heart of unbelief." This is a most discour- 
aging condition of affairs. 

We repeat that God never intended such a condi- 
tion. The modern church effort is to get men "con- 
verted" and very little (comparatively) is done to 
keep them converted. A great many ministers are so 
busy getting sheep into the fold that they fail to see 



; 52 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

how many are getting out at the other end. Of what 
use to bring children into the world to let them 
starve to death ? Of what use to plant a crop if it can 
not be harvested ? Better not launch the ship if it can 
not be kept afloat. 

Paul said to the backslidden church at Galatia: 
"Ye did run well. Who did hinder you?" The 
trouble with that church was they were switched off 
the track. He says, "Having begun in the Spirit, are 
ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Notice some 
things about this church. 1. They began. 2. They 
began right. They began in the Spirit. They be- 
gan by regeneration through the Holy Spirit by 
faith. 3. They continued for a time. It is of no 
use to begin unless we continue. 4. They continu- 
ed in a wrong manner. They expected to be made 
"perfect by the flesh." They felt their need of a 
perfect Christian life. Every real Christian does. 
They had before them the alternative of being made 
perfect through the Spirit or of attempting it by the 
flesh. They chose the latter alternative and back- 
slid. They undertook to get rid of the carnal mind 
(the great drag in Christian life) by works of their 
own and failed. The result was they backslid. Had 
they trusted God for their sanctification, as they did 
for their justification, they would have continued in 
the way of the Spirit. 

An event of history illustrates the agency of In- 
bred sin in backsliding. An army had laid siege to 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 53 

a city. Month after month they had tried to take 
it. But the brave people within had repelled every 
attack. So they resorted to treachery. They brib- 
ed a young woman to let them in. One dark night 
she opened a gate in the walls and the town was tak- 
en. A little traitor undid the work of a host of arm- 
ed men. So does inbred sin, that traitor in the heart, 
respond to Satan, our outward foe, and betray us. 
Inbred sin belongs to the devil and he works in co- 
operation with it. A pure heart has nothing within 
to respond to the tempter's voice. Jesus said, " Sa- 
tan cometh and hath nothing in me." 

We see this illustrated in the experience of Judas. 
He was once a good man, a preacher of the gospel, 
for certainly Jesus would not have chosen a bad man 
to preach and urge men to repent. This is an incon-. 
sistency inconceivable. But he had a covetous heart 
and it betrayed him and " Satan entered into him," 
says the inspired writer, and he backslid. Peter had 
a cowardly spirit which led him to deny his Master 
when outward temptation assailed him. John and 
James were men of fiery dispositions before Pente- 
cost; who wanted to kill those who did not treat 
them well. It was this depraved disposition of heart 
that caused all the disciples to forsake Jesus and flee 
when his enemies seized him. 

The elimination of inbred sin lessens the danger 
of backsliding. "We do not mean to say that it is a 
sure remedy for backsliding, for angels fell even in 



54 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

heaven, and Adam, the perfect man, fell. But elim- 
ination of sin lessens the danger of falling. It is in 
harmony with common sense for God to make pro- 
vision for the eradication of this evil principle in 
our nature, or it is well nigh hopeless for us to ex- 
pect to gain heaven. 



CHAPTER VL 

HOLINESS IS THE CONDITION OF SATISFAC- 
TORY GROWTH 

'T^EEE Scriptures not only teach, the possibility of 
■*• growth or development in grace but make it a 
duty. We are commanded to " grow in grace." None 
of us will be so saved from sin as to make growth in 
grace either unnecessary or impossible. The holiest 
of beings, in this world, grow in grace. It was said 
of the holy child Jesus, "He increased in wisdom and 
stature and in favor wdth God and man." The word 
favor is karis in the Greek. It is nearly everywhere 
in the New Testament translated, grace. Adam 
Clarke says, "Even Christ himself who knew no sin, 
grew in the favor of God ; and as to his human na- 
ture, increased the graces of the Holy Spirit. From 
this we learn that if a man were as pure and perfect 
as the man Christ Jesus himself was, yet he might, 
nevertheless, increase in the image and consequently 
in the fear of God." John the Baptist was filled 
with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb and 
yet he "grew and waxed strong in spirit." "We note 
these two illustrations because some have thought 
that when a soul is cleansed from all sin, it implied, 
that growth in grace stops. 



56 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

The term growth is a figure taken from the natur- 
al world. It means that the soul increases and de- 
velops in the divine graces just as animal and vege- 
table life grows in the natural world. The same laws 
of development exist in the spiritual as in the nat- 
ural world. 

There are two errors that well meaning people 
have embraced right here. Had they kept to the 
figure as seen in the natural world, these errors might 
have been avoided. The first error consists in con- 
founding purity with maturity. They would not 
make this mistake in the natural world. Perfect 
fruit may increase until it comes to maturity. For 
instance an apple in June may be perfect in quality 
and yet increase in quantity until October. And 
when October comes it will not be of more perfect 
quality, although it is fully developed. Or the ap- 
ple may be mature in October and have impurities 
in it. So that purity and maturity are not the same. 
Nor did growth of all the months make the apple 
sound. If it had a rot in it in June the growth of 
months could not out develop the rot. No amount 
of growth or development can remove sin from the 
heart. There is nothing that can do it but the blood 
of Jesus. This is the second error which is very 
popular. Nothii^g impure ever becomes pure by 
growth in the natural or spiritual world. Is it not 
singular that people Who never heard of a dirty 
child growing clean, or a field of corn outgrowing 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 57 

the weeds and thus killing them, or an apple out- 
growing a rot or a tree outgrowing a blemish, should 
boldly affirm that the soul can outgrow its unclean- 
ness? 

There is no recorded instance of the outgrowing 
of sin in all ages of the Christian church. Is it not 
strange that any one should hold to a theory that 
has no practical illustrations to prove it ? The fact 
is that the reverse is true. After a growth of five, 
ten, twenty, thirty, and seventy and eighty years we 
find under certain circumstances and provocations 
the old sinful nature will assert itself as readily as 
in youthful days. Thousands have acknowledged 
that a long life of growth in the Christian life had 
not destroyed the old carnal nature. 

The theory that sin is destroyed by growth in 
grace is not only contrary to the analogy of growth 
in nature, and contrary to human experience, but 
also has no scriptural support. There is no such 
teaching in the ward of God. 

We have never heard but one passage of Scripture 
quoted in its favor. It is this : "First the blade, then 
the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. 7 ' (Mark 
4:28.) An examination of the passage shows that 
it refers to the spread of the kingdom of God by suc- 
cessive stages, over the world. But if an objector 
deny this, even then, it does not prove that sin is de- 
stroyed in the heart by growth in grace. For if 
sanctifieation is taught in the passage then "the full 



58 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

corn in the ear" must mean entire sanctification and 
"the blade" must mean the experience of justifica- 
tion. And if entire sanctification is by growth then 
"the blade" of justification must be wrought the 
same way. This is proving too much for we know 
the Scripture teaches that we are justified by faith, 
not by growth. 

The difficulty with these objectors is, (as has often 
been pointed out), they make no distinction between 
growing in grace and growing into grace. The old 
familiar illustration is this: We can swim in water 
but we cannot swim into water. We can grow in 
grace but not into it. All grace, whether the grace 
of justification or the grace of entire sanctification, 
is obtained by faith. Having entered into the state 
of grace by faith we can then grow in it and not un- 
til then. 

Entire sanctification means the removal of the 
hindrances to growth. It would be untrue to say 
that there is no growth in grace until we are entirely 
sanctified, for there is a growth in grace in the jus- 
tified life, but it is feeble and usually very unsatis- 
factory. It is like the growth of the field of com in 
which the weeds are left to grow unhindered. The 
state of normal growth as God intended is in the 
entirely sanctified life. The growth is so much more 
satisfactory and substantial that the scriptural pas- 
sages that speak of it are always in connection with 
statements concerning heart-purity or entire sane- 



COMMON SENSE IN BELIGION 59 

tification. We quote them. They are in the Second 
Epistle of Peter: "Whereby are given unto us ex- 
ceeding great and precious promises, that by these 
ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having 
escaped the corruption that is in the world through 
lust." It will be seen here that entire sanctification 
is taught in the phrase, "having escaped the corrup- 
tion that is in the world through lust." Faith in 
these exceeding great and precious promises brought 
this sanctification to these people, to whom he is 
writing. He continues thus, "And besides this, add 
to your faith." That is, add to the faith, by which 
you appropriated the promises and escaped the cor- 
ruption of lust. It means, having been cleansed 
from all sin by faith, now add, increase, grow. So 
we are to grow by adding "virtue (or courage) ; and 
to virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge, temperance ; 
and to temperance, patience; and to patience, god- 
liness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to 
brotherly kindness, charity." 

The only other passage enjoining growth in grace 
i^ found in Second Peter 3 :18 — the last verse of the 
epistle. "Grow in grace." This follows the in- 
junction, "that ye may be found of him in peace, 
without spot and blameless." 

This is as it should be, for growth is so truly best 
promoted by purity in the spiritual world as in the 
animal and vegetable worlds. Strange that people 
can not see that we get purity in order to grow, 



60 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

rather than grow in order to obtain purity. They 
have by this inconsistent, unscriptural theory re- 
versed the order both of nature and of grace. We 
clean our corn fields in order that they shall grow 
better. "We do not make them grow in order to 
clear them of weeds. We purify the blood of our 
children in order to have them grow and develop. 
We do not seek to make them grow in order to make 
their blood pure. But when it comes to spiritual 
matters, some expect to make the soul free from sin 
by development. Their mistake is in not realizing 
that growth .is addition. But what we need is sub- 
traction of sin. Growth never subtracts, but it de- 
velops that which exists already. 

Holiness is a state of heart where the weeds of sin 
have ceased to exist; The soul is freed from internal 
hindering evil and can put all its effort upon God 
and his salvation. A religion that can not accom- 
plish this fails at the point where it is sadly needed. 
Again we say holiness is in harmony with good com- 
mon sense. It saves just where we need it* 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOLINESS BEINGS PROSPERITY TO THE 
CHURCH 

THE ENEMY of all souls is a wily strategist. He 
knows how to plan the defeat of the cause of 
God, by the most insidious and crafty plans and 
schemes. No general conducting a military cam- 
paign was ever more skilful in devices to hinder his 
foe. 

One of his favorite methods is to make it appear 
that the strongest defenses of the army of God are 
the weakest. He attempts ever to bring ridicule to 
bear upon the strongest bulwarks of the armies of the 
living God. His object is to make the good appear 
bad; to make men believe that white is black; to 
make his attacks on the strong points of Christian- 
ity. In harmony with this policy, he attacked, 
through his emissaries, the character of the immacu- 
late Son of Gad, and tried to make it appear that he 
was possessed with a devil. The character of the 
Son of God is the great center of the Christian 
faith. It is the irrefutable evidence of the divinity 
of our holy religion. This is the reason that some 
of the evil spirits in the time of Christ said, "I know 
thee whom thou art, the Son of God." Jesus under- 
stood the plot and rebuked it. He did not propose 



62 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

to have it appear that he was in league with or pos- 
sessed by evil spirits. 

Since this is the policy of Satan, it need not be 
wondered at, that she should try to make it appear 
that holiness, which is ' ' the central idea of Christian- 
ity, ' 9 is a fanaticism and an impossibility in this life. 
It could hardly be expected that truth could have a 
fair chance. Consequently we find all sorts of mis- 
representation. Satan has had great success in 
frightening people from holiness by misrepresent- 
ing it. It is safe to say that the majority of church 
paembers today have listened so much to these mis- 
representations that they have scarcely any idea at 
all of the real nature of this — the central doctrine of 
the Bible. There are thousands of honest people 
fwho would accept it; if they knew its real nature. 
(Their hearts are hungry for this bread, but they are 
kept away because they have been told that the wit- 
nesses to entire sanctification claim to have reached 
the state where they can not sin, nor make mistakes, 
nor be tempted. 

In this same propagandism of Satan is found the 
assertion that holiness is a narrow minded specialty, 
a side track that leaves the greater part of the doc- 
trines and experiences of Christianity and holds en- 
tirely aloof from them, and that to embrace it makes 
one narrow and unfitted for the practical duties of 
Christianity. The fact of it is, that this is the. cen- 
tral doctrine around which all the other doctrines of 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 63 

Christianity revolve, like the planets around the sun. 
Jesus said the all embracing commandment was, 
"Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy 
heart, and soul and mind and strength." This is 
perfect love. This is holiness. Paul says "the end 
of the commandment is love out of a pure heart." 
All the claims of the advocates of holiness are found 
in these two utterances of Jesus and Paul. 

In the divine economy it is intended that holiness 
and holiness only is the divine essential to the pros- 
perity of the cause of God in all its * branches. 
Strange that an unbelieving church does not grasp 
the fact! That keen observer of spiritual things, 
John "Wesley, says again and again that "where 
holiness is preached constantly and explicitly the 
work of God prospers in all its branches." He says, 
"I examined the society at Bristol, and was surpris- 
ed to find fifty members fewer than I left in last 
October. One reason is Christian perfection has 
been little insisted on ; and wherever this is not done, 
be the preachers ever so eloquent, there is little in- 
crease, either in the number or grace of the hear- 
ers." (Wesley's Works, Vol. IV, page 220.) "I 
preached at Bradford where the people are all alive. 
Many have lately experienced the great salvation, 
and their zeal has been a great blessing. Indeed, this 
I always observe wherever a work of sanctification 
breaks out, the whole work of God prospers." (Vol. 
IV. page 437.1 



64 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

"I found the plain reason why the work of God 
had gained no ground in this (Lavenston) circuit in 
all the year. The preachers had given up the Meth- 
odist testimony. Either they did not speak of per- 
fection at all (the peculiar doctrine committed to 
our trust), or they spoke of it only in general terms, 
without urging believers to go on unto perfection, 
and to expect it every moment. And wherever this 
is not done the work of God does not prosper.' 7 (Vol. 
IV, page 459.) We could fill a chapter with similar 
quotations from Wesley. This is just as true in this 
day as in his day. Individual churches are still 
among us where holiness has the right of way and 
prosperity is the result. The only handicap is that 
they are almost isolated. Holiness does not have a 
fair chance. If those isolated churches had the sym- 
pathy of all the other churches greater success 
would follow. But they succeed in the face of the 
lack of sympathy, if not opposition. 

We can locate on the map to our actual knowledge 
such churches that have succeeded and are succeed- 
ing because holiness has the right of way. Let us 
note the points of their successes. 

1. Success in soul saving. . There is a vast differ- 
ence between the old fashioned protracted meeting 
and the modern "revival." The former was pray- 
ed down from heaven. The latter is "got up." The 
former depended upon the outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit. The latter is brought to pass by human meth- 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 65 

ods and appliances. In the former the fathers pray- 
ed until they prayed through and the revival came 
and whole communities of sinners were put under 
conviction. Men could not sleep nights. Hardened 
sinners made restitution, gave up their wicked ways, 
confessed their sins and went forth to lead new, 
changed lives. In the modern revival, reliance is 
put mostly on organization : committees, union meet- 
ings, great chorus choirs, extensive, adroit, advertis- 
ing, signing of cards, shaking hands with the preach- 
er and joining the church. Very little or nothing is 
said concerning repentance or restitution or the wit- 
ness of the Spirit. 

If the modern revival is the divine method then 
we confess that holiness preaching and experience is 
not a success in this connection. But if the old time 
revival is the divine method which laid the founda- 
tion of the Christian church in these lands, then it 
is greatly helped and brought to pass by holiness 
preaching and holy living. 

We have shown in a previous chapter that the New 
Testament method of putting sinners under convic- 
tion is to have the church filled with the Holy Spirit 
and that under its Prophetic utterances men are 
moved to acknowledge the truth. (See I Cor. 14§ 
24-25.) We do not believe God has ever authorized 
any other method for saving the world, except 
through a holy church, for the great hindrance to 
the spread of the gospel is because the professed 



66 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

church is not holy. This is what the world demands 
and before such »a church it will ever bow, for, as 
Mark Guy Pearse well says, " "Whatever theories the 
churches may hold, the world has for the Christian, 
but one standard, and that is entire sanctiflcation. 
It trips and stumbles over the defects of Christian 
people and makes no allowance for them. The 
world's conviction and conversion depend upon the 
holy lives of religious people." 

But the old time revival depended also on the in- 
tercession of God's people. It began with prepara- 
tion on the part of the church ; heart searching, con- 
fession and mighty soul travail. They prayed and 
prayed until their consecration and unity were com- 
plete and then down came the fire from heaven and 
sinners were saved. Complete consecration made* 
their prayers effective. 

The modern holiness movement has made the con- 
secration permanent. The fathers seemed to think 
entire consecration was enough just for the time of 
the protracted meeting. Then gradually they relax- 
ed back to the old life. The modern holiness move- 
ment teaches that consecration is to be eternal ; nev- 
er to be relaxed and that the church should be in a 
revival state all the time. There should be a full 
tide all the time, without any ebbing and flowing. 
This we believe is the divine plan. A really entirely 
sanctified church is always on the alert to get men 
saved. It is not a revival limited to "the week of 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 67 

prayer' ' or the "annual revival.' ' It sees new born 
souls constantly at its altars. A careful, candid in-, 
vestigation will prove this to be the fact even in 
these modern days. What a pity that ecclesiastics 
seem ignorant of this fact to such an alarming ex- 
tent. 

2. Liberality in giving. Holiness promotes lib- 
erality in giving. It kills covetousness. How piti- 
ful the modern expedients to raise money to support 
the gospel. It looks to the world as if the cause of 
our God were on the verge of bankruptcy a good 
deal of the time. There is no cause that does so 
much for man, that is so poorly supported. More 
than that, the modern methods of supporting the 
gospel develop covetousness and stinginess. "Where- 
as the Scriptural method enlarges the heart and 
brings blessing to the giver. The great Head of the 
Church said, "It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive. " Modern methods of supporting the gospel 
give the lie to his assertion. They have practically 
made it appear that it is more blessed to receive than 
to give. The mercantile idea has crowded out the 
gospel method of direct giving. Fairs, festivals, 
feasting prove that people want something back in 
return when they give to the cause of God. They 
seek not enlargement of heart, but fun, frolic and 
entertainment. And the worst of it is the financial 
returns are not what they should be even then. More 
money comes out of the spontaneous heart than can 



68 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

be squeezed out of the unwilling. A fountain is 
more profitable than a sponge. 

The holy people are liberal givers. If any one 
feels disposed to deny this let him see how easily 
and promptly finances are raised by the Scriptural 
method. Paul speaks of the churches of Macedonia 
who "first gave their own selves to the Lord." (II 
Cor. 8 :5.) No wonder he boasts of their great lib- 
erality. Holy people have had the old man crucified 
and covetousness is gone. They delight to give to 
God in gratitude for his great gift of salvation. 

This has been disputed. We call attention to the 
facts, which can easily be pointed out and verified, 
in many churches. 

3. Missionary effort. Jesus Christ linked holi- 
ness to foreign missions, when the lawyer said that 
the great commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord, 
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy 
neighbor as thyself." This is perfect love to God 
and man. This is the fruit of holiness. He told the 
lawyer, in explaining what the term neighbor meant, 
that it included foreigners, even as the hated Samar- 
itan cared for the unfortunate Jew. There has beem 
no class of people so willing to go to the ends of the 
earth to carry the gospel, as the holy people. Entire 
consecration has created thousands of foreign mis- 
sionaries. And none have the success that they have 
as a class. A company of missionaries in Japan got 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 69 

together one night to pray. They consecrated them- 
selves to God and were baptized with the Holy Spirit, 
and a great revival broke out in Japan as the result. 
A modest, retiring young lady is puzzled as to some 
of the possibilities of holiness as an experience. Her 
pastor explains the doctrine. She consecrates her- 
self entirely to God, and receives the blessing of a 
pure heart. A holy ambition fills her heart, to go to 
tell the story of salvation to the heathen. She takes 
special training and is the first deaconess consecrat- 
ed by the Methodist Episcopal Church. She goes to 
Western China and gives more than twenty-five 
years to the foreign mission work. The great sc'hool 
at Cheng Tu is the result of her labors. 

Phebe Palmer, the pioneer holiness evangelist of 
America,whose name was a household word in Amer- 
ica and England, a generation ago, and under whose 
labors, thousands were converted, suggests to her 
husband that they give sufficient money to found a 
mission in China. As the result Methodist Episcopal 
Missions are founded in China, which, have become a 
great enterprise. 

Bishop Taylor is providentially appointed mission- 
ary bishop to Africa. He calls for volunteers to go 
with him, without salary or promise of any home 
support. The holiness people rally to the call. A 
large company of men and women meet in a holiness 
convention in Brooklyn, N. Y., in an M. E. Church, 
and at its close sail one stormy^ day for Africa. The 



70 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

holy people at home contribute to their support and 
today regularly organized missions are flourishing in 
Africa as the result. 

And what shall we say more, for time and space 
would fail us to tell of the hundreds in foreign fields, 
(scores of whom we personally know) who became 
missionaries, as the result of the experience of entire 
sanctification. Are their names not recorded in the 
book of life ! 

4. Gifts. "God has his plan for every man." 
He made no two of us just alike. This shows that 
he has a special mission for each of us, and if we 
fail, his plan as regards us is defeated. This is 
shown in the parable of the talents. To one man he 
gave five, to another two and to another one talent. 
He divided them to each one "according to his sev- 
eral ability. " The man who had one talent failed to 
improve it. In the modern church, it is not merely 
the man with one talent that fails to improve it, but 
there seem to be many who have five talents who are 
doing nothing. "We have seen in our American for- 
ests noble fallen trees, rotting and going to decay, 
when there is a great demand for such timber., It 
has made us think of the talent lying idle in the 
American church. It is a great pity when so much 
is to be done, and the cause of Christ languishes for 
helpers. The average church member can not be 
relied upon for spiritual exercises — such as prayer 
or testimony. This is relegated to the pastor and a 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 71 

few of the faithful. It is very difficult to get Sun- 
day school teachers, too. The family altar has al- 
most disappeared. Lay preaching is almost un- 
known. The old time class meeting has gone for- 
ever and one reason of it is, the lack of material 
for leadership. 

But when the Holy Spirit is poured out on a 
church in sanctifying power, it develops the latent 
gifts as at Pentecost. Then every one has a testi- 
mony, and many like Peter become preachers at 
once.. There is no lack in gifts. Preachers, mis- 
sionaries, class leaders, teachers spring up like mag- 
ic. And we have seen it thus in our short lifetime. 

5. Holy people are the spiritual nucleus of the 
church. God has made them the custodians of the 
interests of his spiritual kingdom. They can be de- 
pended upon to keep up the prayer and social means 
of grace. They stand by the revival meetings. They 
are ready to point sinners to the Saviour. They have 
compassion for the lost. If all the professors of en- 
tire sanctification should be suddenly caught away 
to heaven, the cause of God on earth would go limp- 
ing and halting. The church would never know 
their value until they were gone. Suppose every 
church member were truly sanctified, what a differ- 
ence it would make in Christendom. Our prayer 
meetings would be crowded. Testimonies and praises 
would fill the air. The pulpit would fire up aijd 
great conviction would be on sinners and revival 



72 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

fires would constantly blaze and the millenium would 
be upon us. 

6. Holy people give no. trouble as to the enforce- 
ment of Discipline. They keep the rules. You nev- 
er hear them requesting that the laws of the church 
against worldly amusements be amended. They have 
no. lusting after the flesh-pots of Egypt. They have 
something better — a daily feast of salvation in the 
soul. The easiest way to discipline a church is to 
preach full salvation from all sin. The humble will 
seek the blessing and if the preaching be really ag- 
gressive Ishmaelites in the church will pack up 
their baggage and go. 

7. Holy people are engaged in good works. This 
is their specialty. So said Paul: "Who gave him- 
self for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity 
and purify unto himself a people zealous of good 
works. " They love to give, realizing that it is "more 
blessed to give than to receive." They can be reck- 
oned on in the cause of prohibition, temperance, 
charity, the uplifting of the fallen, the Red Cross, 
<ete. Their sympathies and love go out to all man- 
kind. In short holiness makes us all round in our 
development. "When we were young we worked in 
a cotton factory. Great bales of cotton were brought 
from the South. They were opened in the picker 
groom and thrown into the picker and torn all to 
pieces. Then the cotton went through the breaker 
carding machines, which removed much of the dirt 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 73 

and straightened its fibers; then through the " fin- 
ishing" carding machines, and it came out pure 
white. Then it was ready for the spinning machines 
and was made into the "warp and woof," which 
were put together into fabric in the looms; then in 
the cloth room it was piled up, stamped and boxed 
for market. And one big water wheel did the whole 
business. As it turned, all the machinery was busy. 
The pickers tore the cotton into pieces. The first 
and second carding machines removed all the dirt, 
the spinning machine twisted the fibre and the looms 
wove the cloth and it was prepared for market — all 
going on at once as the big wheel revolved. And so 
have we seen it in a church where holiness had right 
of way. The picker of conviction, the first set of 
carding machines of justification, the finishing 
carding machines of entire sanctification that re- 
moved all defilement and the spinning and weaving 
of holy character through trial and testing were all 
going on at once and God was taking them one by 
one to the heavenly market — all done by the baptism 
with the Holy Spirit. Thank God ! There have been 
and there are such churches. May their number in- 
crease. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
HOLINESS BRINGS HAPPINESS 

HAPPINESSS is what everybody wants and yet 
few find. It is rarer than the most precious jew- 
els. When our English langage was made we created 
the word happiness — that which haps or happens, be- 
cause there is so little of it. The ancient heathen 
philosophers declared there is no such thing as hap- 
piness in this world. Solon, the famous wise man 
of Greece, said, * ■ No man ought to bu called a happy 
man as long as he lives/ ' because he could not know 
what his life was to be. Varro reckoned up two 
hundred and eighty different opinions of what con- 
stitutes happiness. Lucian gives a long catalogue 
of the ideas of the philosophers on the subject and 
refutes them all. Byron, the gay voluptuary, who 
had sought happiness in the pleasures of the world, 
while still a young man writes : 

"Though gay companions o'er the bowl 
Dispel awhile the sense of ill, 
Though pleasure fill the maddened soul, 
The heart, the heart is lonely still. 
To die, and go where all must go ; 
To be the nothing that I was 
E're born to living woe. 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 75 

Count o'er the joys, thine hours have seen 

Count o'er the hours from sorrow free 

And know whatever thou hast been 

'Twere better not to be. 

And as for me, so dark my fate, 

In every state of life hath been, 

Man and the world, I so much hate 

I care not when I quit the scene." 

"We used to think as we saw the crowd rushing to 
the theatres by the thousands, that they went be- 
cause they were happy but we have discovered that 
they go because they are not happy, but are seeking 
happiness. The character of the slush, that they 
seek, shows how desperately unhappy they are, who 

"Vainly seek with earthly toys 
_JX*» fill an empty mind. ' ' 

me great secret that mankind have not yet learned 
is that happiness does not consist in what we have 
or see or hear, but in what we are. You thought 
you would be happy if you had this or that or were 
in a more favorable position in life, but happiness is 
in the soul and not in its surroundings. 

God never intended that man should be unhappy. 
He created him to be happy. To deny this is to ac- 
cuse our Creator. Who dares to say the good and 
merciful God ever desired man to be unhappy? The 
fault is with man. He is out of harmony with his 



76 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

Maker's plan because out of harmony with his 
Maker. 

All through nature God shows his desire for our 
happiness. He gave us a beautiful world to please 
our senses. He gives us fruitful seasons and har- 
vests. He might have had the trees bring forth 
their fruits without a blossom, but he gives the blos- 
soms to delight us as well as the fruit to nourish us. 
And that nothing might be wanting, he has in salva- 
tion provided a remedy for our unhappy souls. 

The cause of unhappiness is sin in us. This is the 
cause of all the troubles of the human race. Man 
has lost God out of his soul and can not be happy un- 
til he is right with God. As soon think of a fish at 
ease out of its native element, or an eagle happy, 
taken from its native cliffs and put in a cage. 

When sin is cleansed from the heart by the blood 
of Jesus Christ, the friction is gone. The soul is at 
ease and is happy in God, even when storms rage on 
the outside. Paul said, "I have learned in whatever 
state I am, therewith to be content." The martyrs 
were happy even when the fire was devouring their 
flesh; happier than many ever get, who see no trib- 
ulation. Madame Guyon finds the experience of en- 
tire sanctification by faith in spite of the darkness 
of the Roman Catholic Church and fairly reveled in 
happiness. Persecution, estrangement of family and 
prison walls could not dampen her happiness. She 
declared that when put in prison "the very stones 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 77 

of my prison appear like rubies in my eyes." And 
in that four years' confinement for her profession 
and preaching of holiness she wrote these lines : 

"A little bird am I, 

Shut from fields of air 

And in my cage I sit and sing 

To him, who placed me there, 

"Well pleased a prisoner to be, 

Because my God, it pleaseth thee, 

Naught have I else to do ; 

I sing the whole day long ; 

And he whom most I love to please, 

Doth listen to my song. 

He caught and bound my wandering wing, 

And still he bends to hear me sing. 

My cage confines me round ; 

Abroad I can not fly, 

But though my wing is closely bound 

My heart's at liberty. 

My prison walls can not control 

The flight, the freedom of the soul. 

Oh ! it is good to soar, 

These bolts and bars above, 

To him whose purpose I adore, 

Whose providence I love, 

And in thy mighty will I find 

The joy, the freedom of the mind." 

Jesus says, "Blessed (happy) are the pure id 
heart." 



78 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

If the religion of Jesus did not provide for hap- 
piness, then it breaks down where most needed, for 
this is a world of unhappiness. We declare then, 
that holiness is in harmony with good common sense, 
in providing for happiness in this world as well as 
the world to come. 



CHAPTER IX. 
HOLINESS GLOEIFIES THE TRIUNE GOD 

<*T will pray the Father and he shall give you an- 
■*• other Comforter, that he may abide with you 
forever/ ' (John 14:16). Here we have mentioned 
the three persons of the Godhead. Here is Jesus, 
the second person of the Trinity declaring that he 
will pray the Father, the first person of the Trinity 
to send the Holy Spirit, who is the third person of 
the Trinity. This is only one of hundreds of pas- 
sages in the Bible that clearly teach the Trinity of 
the godhead. This one passage alone is enough to 
prove the doctrine. This is not a book on theology, 
but it may be well to state the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity. It is claimed that it is mysterious and beyond 
our comprehension. So is the existence of God be- 
yond comprehension. "We behold a thousand things 
each day that are beyond our comprehension, but we 
do not deny or throw them away. "We like the old 
Indian's illustration of the Trinity. He said, "Go 
down to the river in the winter and you come to 
snow. Dig through the snow and you come to ice, 
dig through the ice and you come to water. They 
are different, but they are all water. If we can ad- 
mit this, we should go slow in our failure to under- 
stand the fact that there are three in the godhead. 



80 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

These three persons are all interested and more 
than interested in the work of holiness. Let us see 
how vitally they are connected with the work of 
holiness. 

God, the Father has always willed that we should 
be holy. He created man in his own image of right- 
eousness and true holiness. That was what he want- 
ed man to be. But he did not want man to be holy 
because he was so created. He wanted man to be 
holy from his own choice. So he gave him freedom 
of his will. And all those whom he makes holy in 
all ages are those, who are holy from choice. 

When man chose sin in place of holiness and be- 
came depraved, God instituted the plan of salvation, 
for a greater purpose than to save man from hell or 
to bring him to heaven. It was to restore him to 
holiness. This is the one point to which all revela- 
tion tends. This is the end of the commandment. 
Says Paul: "Now the end of the commandment is 
love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and 
faith unfeigned. '■ ' Consequently we may look on the 
Bible as the unfolding of the plan to make man holy. 

First: God had to hint at the nature of holiness, 
by symbols and object lessons, because his people 
had become so ignorant and debased by their bond- 
age in Egypt among the heathen. So he divided the 
animals into two classes — the clean and unclean, 
and refused to have any but the clean offered to him 
in sacrifice. Then he required the worshipper to be 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 81 

ceremonially clean, who offered sacrifice to him. 
Thus he taught them that he was a being that would 
accept nothing unclean. Thus gradually he instilled 
into their minds the idea of his moral cleanness or 
holiness. 

Second: Having thus by symbol taught the idea 
of moral cleanness or holiness, he commanded them 
to be holy. Again and again is the command given. 
He does not give a reason for all his commands, but 
he does when he commands us to be holy. He says 
"Be ye holy for I am holy." That is sufficient 
reason for our holiness, because he is holy. 

Third: He promises it again and again in his 
word. Such passages as, "I the Lord thy God will 
circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed that 
thou mayest love the Lord, thy God with all thy 
heart," and a host of others clearly gives his prom- 
ises. Zacharias under the inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit says God took an oath to make us holy. "The 
oath which he swore unto our father, Abraham, that 
we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies 
might serve him without fear, in holiness and right- 
eousness before him all the days of our life." 

Fourth : He has made ample provision to make us 
holy. He gave the Bible for that purpose. "All 
scripture," says Paul, "is given by inspiration and is 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction in 
righteousness that the man of God might be per- 
fect." Peter says, "Whereby are given unto us ex- 



82 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

ceeding great and precious promises that through 
them ye might be partakers of the divine nature, 
having escaped the corruption that is in the world 
through lust." Jesus prayed for his disciple-preach- 
ers, " Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is 
truth." 

God has given the divers orders of the ministry 
for the sanctification of man. In Eph. 4:11-13 we 
have a very important statement. Paul likens Jesus 
when he arose from the grave victorious over his 
enemies, to the ancient conquering general, who on 
his return from war was allowed a triumphal pro- 
cession through the streets of Rome. As the pro- 
cession filed through the city, the conqueror threw 
showers of gold and silver among the crowd. These 
handfuls of money were called donations or gifts. 
So Jesus when he triumphed over death gave as do- 
nations the different gifts of the ministry. "He gave 
some (people) apostles; and some prophets; and 
some evangelists; and some pastors and some teach- 
ers for the perfecting of the saints ; for the work of 
the ministry ; for the edifying of the church, till we 
all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ." 
Paul sayst "Whom we preach warning every man 
and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may 
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." 

The church is given to help to holiness. As tKg 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 83 

Methodist Discipline says of the Church, "Among 
its privileges are peculiar incitements to holiness.' ' 
Rightly improved the ordinances of -God's house are 
helps to holiness. We "believe in the communion of 
Saints/ ' So we say in the Apostle's Creed. The 
real church is an association of saints to help build 
up each other in holiness. Is it any wonder that the 
Apostle says "This is the will of God, your sancti- 
fication. ,, 

God the Father planned holiness for mankind far 
back in the ages of eternity, before the world began, 
"According as he hath chosen us in him before the 
foundation of the world,' ' says Paul to the Ephes- 
ians. 

Holiness in man therefore glorifies the adorable, 
first person of the Trinity, who created man holy and 
has provided all needful agencies to make him holy. 

Holiness glorifies Jesus Christ, the Second person 
of the Trinity. He came to this world to make pos- 
sible and procure the elimination of sin from the hu- 
man heart. His blood is the procuring cause of sal- 
vation from all sin. Gabriel in announcing his birth 
said, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall 
save his people from their- sins." His mission was 
not to save his people in, but from their sins. He 
lived a holy life as our example. He preached hol- 
iness and antagonized the churchmen of the day be- 
cause they lacked it. He told them they made "clean 



84 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

the outside of the cup and platter but within were 
full of ravening and excess." He likened them to 
putrid sepulchres, white and glistening on the* out- 
side only. He prayed for his disciples just as he 
went to Gethsemane that they might be sanctified. 

He died that his church — those who had already 
been regenerated — might be sanctified. Paul says, 
"Christ also loved the church and gave himself for 
it, that it might be sanctified/ ' John says, "The 
blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin." The inspired author of the epistle to the He- 
brews says, "Jesus that he might sanctify the people 
with his own blood suffered without the gate." If 
any one claims to love Jesus Christ and is not moved 
when he reads that Jesus died that his church might 
be sanctified, he has made a mistake in supposing he 
is a follower of Jesus. This, then, was the mission of 
Jesus to teach holiness, to set the example of holiness 
and to make an offering of himself to provide and by 
his death prepare the way for man to be holy. There- 
fore holiness glorifies the Second Person of the 
Trinity. 

Holiness glorifies the Holy Spirit, the Third person 
of the Adorable Trinity. If language means any- 
thing, it means the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit 
is a person as truly as the Father and Son. He has 
been called the "Executive of the godhead." It is 
his office to actually perform the work in the heart 
that God the Father has planned and Christ the Son 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 85 

has made possible by his death. The Scripture so 
teaches. 

St. Peter tells us that we are "elect according to 
the foreknowledge of God through sanctification of 
the Spirit." St. Paul says, "God hath from the be- 
ginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctifica- 
tion of the Spirit.' \ He comes to cleanse our hearts, 
that they may be fit temples for his indwelling, for 
"ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost.' ' A holy 
heart is a sample of his office-work. It glorifies the 
Holy Spirit. 

It is therefore in harmony with common sense that 
we should be holy for it proves that the plans and 
office work of the Trinity as regards holiness are 
effective. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOLINESS MAKES OBEDIENCE TO DIVINE 
LAW POSSIBLE 

<*T)ECATJSE we are not under the dominion of the 
-*^law as were the Jews, before the Gospel dispen- 
sation, that does not free us from obedience to the 
law." Jesus set the matter in a clear light in The 
Sermon on the Mount, in which he said, " Think not 
that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : 
I am not come to destroy but to fulfil." Men had 
been trying to work out their salvation by their 
works of righteousness, but had failed. Salvation 
can not be obtained by our good works for all our 
good works will not atone for our sins. More than 
that, no man ever could keep all the law of God in 
his own strength. If he fails in one particular he is 
guilty. St. James says, "For whosoever shall keep 
the whole law and yet offend in one point is guilty 
of all." The law is not like a string of beads inde- 
pendent of each other, so that if one be broken the 
other is not affected. It is rather like a golden ring. 
A break in jit is a break of the entirety of the ring. 
A break in the law of God is something done con- 
trary to the divine will. The ten commandments 
are cautions to as, put up at the ten points or prin- 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 87 

ciplcs where it is possible to act contrary to the di- 
vine will. 

Jesus came that we might obtain the power to keep 
the divine law, which the Jewish church had failed 
to do. 

There are many people today, who assert that it 
is impossible to keep the law of God. If that be true 
then God has commanded an impossibility. We had 
rather be a Pharisee relying on our good works to 
get us into heaven than a professed Christian deny- 
ing that there is power sufficient in divine grace to 
keep us from breaking the law of God. 

Jesus came to save us by his atonement so that we 
can keep the law of God. He came to create us 
anew for good works. Paul says, "We are his work- 
manship, created in Christ Jesus, unto good works, 
which God hath before ordained that we should walk 
in them." The people, who say we can not be kept 
from committing sin, contradict this scripture as 
well as the whole trend and teaching of scripture. 

Our actual sins or sins of action are voluntary. 
John Wesley defines voluntary sin as "The wilful 
transgression of a known law." St. John says the 
same thing virtually when he says, "Sin is the trans- 
gression of the law." He also says that "whosoever 
is born of God doth not commit sin" and "whosoever 
committeth sin is of the devil." 

The prophet Jeremiah foretold this when he said, 
"But this shall be the covenant that I will make 



.88 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

with the house of Israel ; after those days, saith the 
Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and 
write it in their hearts." That is, God puts such a 
love for his commandments in the hearts of his chil- 
dren that they delight to keep his commandments. 
Jesus said to his disciples, "If ye love me ye will 
keep my commandments. ' ' Every regenerated soul 
keeps the divine commandments because he loves 
God. This love has been "shed abroad in his heart 
by the Holy Spirit." It is a supernatural love. 
Such a soul can say with Jesus his elder brother, "I 
delight to do thy will, God." 

This love-sacrifice is entirely different from the 
service of a slave. Those of the Jews, Who sought 
to keep the divine commands, were like slaves, who 
obey from servile fear or like the ritualistic devotees 
of today. We once went to a camp of volunteer sol- 
diers during the Civil "War. A spirit of cheerfulness 
and joviality pervaded the entire place. Later we 
saw a car load of substitutes, who for a certain sum 
of money had taken the place of drafted men. They 
had to be guarded by armed volunteers lest they run 
away. Their countenances were devoid of animation. 
It was an enforced service. This shows the differ- 
ence between a love service and a forced service. 

The illustration of two commanders and their fol- 
lowers taken from the classic legends of Greece is 
often used to illustrate the difference between love 
service and a forced service. When the first com- 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 89 

mander and his company sailed by the enchanted 
rocks, where the beautiful sirens sported, he was 
obliged to put wax in the ears of his men lest they 
hear the bewitching music of the sirens, and also to 
tie them to the mast of the ship lest they leap over- 
board to go to the charmers. But the second com- 
mander had Orpheus, a musician, whose music so 
surpassed that of the sirens as to make it sound dis- 
cordant. He had the power of a superior service. 
It is so with a true child of God. Duty is a delight 
and disobedience is repugnant, because of the divine 
love in the heart. " It overcomes the desire of doing 
evil. 

But there is one drawback even in this love serv- 
ice. It is before divine love has been made perfect 
in the heart. Before that time, strange as it may 
seem, divine love within the heart at times has to 
struggle with the carnal nature in order to do that 
which we delight to do. Entire sanctification, as we 
have shown before, removes this warring element 
from the soul and makes it a delight to do the will 
of God. 

But the objection is often made in the form of this 
question. Is not the love of God put in the soul at 
regeneration perfect? "We reply, Yes, in kind but 
not in degree. This love is not perfect because it is 
mixed with the tendencies of the carnal mind or, to 
state it in another way, it is associated with the 
carnal mind. Just as other minerals are mixed with 






90 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

the veins of pure coal in the earth and when brought 
to market the whole mass is called mixed, although 
the coal itself is pure. This is what St. John means 
when he says, " Herein is love with us made perfect.' ' 
This is the marginal translation of I John 4:17. 
When the man of sin is cast out of the heart, then 
our love service is free from all internal hindrances. 
This is religion made easy. 

Is not this reasonable? Is it not in harmony with 
common sense that the hindrances to our loving God 
with all the heart should and must be removed from 
our nature that we may keep the great command- 
ment, that includes all the oher commandments viz. 
to "love the Lord with all the heart V 9 

Thus far we have been considering voluntary sins. 
We now take up involuntary sins— those that we un- 
wittingly commit, otherwise called sins of ignorance ; 
sins that, fall below the divine standard of rectitude. 
What is our relation to them? Can we render a 
perfect service to God? We reply, NO. Consequent- 
ly provision has been made in the divine economy to 
justify certain people who fail in rendering a perfect 
service to God. Under the Old Testament economy 
a sacrifice was offered every year for sins of ignor- 
ance. Under the New Testament dispensation, "love 
is the fulfilling of the law." For, says Paul, "the 
end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart 
and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.' ' God 
allows perfect love to fill up or supplement our im- 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 91 

perfect service. Just as a father accepts the love 
and devotion of a child, who is making sad mistakes 
when trying its best to please its parents. He al- 
lows the love of the child to fill up the imperfection 
of its service. 

Therefore if our hearts be full of love to God, we 
can come up to the spirit of the law even if we fail 
in the letter. 



CHAPTER XI. 
HOLINESS FITS FOR HEAVEN 

IT IS exceedingly popular to talk of going to heav- 
en. Multitudes express their desire for heaven 
and talk of meeting their friends there, who act as if 
there were no such place. If a man is expecting to 
go to another country he acts as if there were such a 
country. But we hear certain people, in this Chris- 
tian land, talk of heaven, whose conduct belies their 
assertions. We mean by heaven, not the heaven of 
Mohammedism or any other sect, but the heaven of 
the Bible. 

Many people's notion of heaven is not much dif- 
ferent from the heaven of the Mohammedans. If 
they really expected to go to the heaven of the Bi- 
ble, they would seek to be fitted for it. 

It is the law of the universe that everything or 
person must be in harmony with their surroundings. 
Otherwise they can not exist. For instance, God has 
given the fish scales, fins and gills that they may 
live in the water. He has given the birds downy 
plumage, and hollow bones that they may float in 
the air. If we were transported to the planet Ju- 
piter, we should die for lack of oxygen. He has 
wrapped this earth in a robe of oxygen fifty mile* 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 93 

deep and given us lungs to breathe it in to keep our 
blood pure. We are adapted thus to it. We could 
not live beneath the waters as do the fish. And if 
we get to heaven, we must be adapted to it. The 
atmosphere of heaven is holiness and we can not live 
there unless we are holy. As we are now by nature, 
we are fitted for hell, the headquarters of Satan. We 
may well ask ourselves what good expectation we 
have of heaven, unless we have heaven in our souls, 
for heaven is a state of heart as well as a place. If 
we go to heaven, it must first come to us. 

A clergyman riding beside a profane coachman, 
who discharged volley after volley of oaths, fixing 
his eyes upon him, said, "I can not imagine what 
you will do in heaven! There are no horses, nor 
coaches, nor saddles, nor bridles, nor public houses 
in heaven. There will be no one to swear at, or to 
whom you can use bad language. I cannot imagine 
what you will do in heaven. ' ' Years after, the same 
clergyman was called to see a dying man, who told 
him he was saved by his rebuke, "I cannot imagine 
what you will do in heaven." 

Some confusion of thought exists among Some 
good people on the subject of the fitness for heaven. 
Entire sanctification is the fitness for heaven. This 
is not the same as justification. We get our title to 
heaven when justified, but not our fitness. A king's 
son might have a title to the kingdom, but he has to 



94 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

be educated and cultured to be fit to rule. Those 
people who object to entire sanctification, declaring 
that they got their fitness for heaven when convert- 
ed are both unscriptural and unphilosophical. Every 
day we can see the difference between a title and a 
fitness for an estate. The common law of our land 
makes this distinction. A child is an heir of his fa- 
ther's property, but he is not fitted to take posses- 
sion until he comes to the age of twenty-one years. 
And then if he is an imbecile he is put under trustees. 
Thus the common law of the land distinguishes 
between a title and fitness. St. Paul makes the same: 
distinction saying to the Galatians, "Now the heir 
as long as he is a child differeth nothing from a 
servant, but is put under tutors and governors until 
the time appointed by his father." 

Justification is the pardon of our sins. But that is 
not enough. It is like a man in prison condemned 
to die. He contracts deadly disease. He is there- 
fore twice dead. If ho escapes the hangman, the dis- 
ease will kill him. The governor or president may 
pardon him, but he will die just the same. He needs 
the care of the physician just as much as the pardon 
of the governor. "We, by nature, have the deadly dis- 
ease of sin. It breaks out in evil thoughts, words 
and acts. "We must have not only pardon for the 
thoughts, words and acts, but we must be cured of 
the disease of sin in order to enter heaven, for heav- 
en is quarantined against sin. Ordinary morality 



COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 95 

will keep us out of the penitentiary, but it will take 
holiness to keep us out of hell. 

Heaven is the palace of the King of kings and 
Lord of lords and we must be suitably conditioned 
to enter it. The man in the parable failed to have 
on the wedding garment and was cast out into outer 
darkness. The wedding garment is " holiness with- 
without which no man shall see the Lord." And is 
not this reasonable? There is no harmony or real 
comfort in the intercourse of those who are not of 
the same affinity. The wicked, if in heaven, would 
be uncomfortable in the presence of the good of all 
ages, and their presence would mar the heavenly en- 
joyment of the good. *A clergyman once visited a 
hardened criminal, condemned to be hanged. After 
trying in vain to arouse the man's mind to serious 
things, he portrayed heaven, the home of God and 
the good of all ages. "When he spoke of being in 
their society forever, the criminal said, "Then I do 
not want to go there.' ' 

Christianity differs from all other religions in that 
it requires an ethical life or right living. Other re- 
ligions have no connection with morals. In fact the 
other religions are so debasing that a man is a better 
man, who has nothing to do with them. The Chris- 
tian religion has for its object not merely to save 
men from hell but to fit them for heaven. This be- 
ing the case, it is in harmony with common sense that 
we should be holy in this life, for holiness is only the 



96 COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 

state of being right. Therefore from whatever an- 
gle we view the subject, it is in harmony with the 
highest reason that we should be holy in the present 
life, so that "sudden death would be sudden glory/' 



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